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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


s 


lINIVERSlTY'orCALIFORNIA, 

LIBRARY, 

tJOS  ANGELES,  OAHF, 


e'-  i 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


Conference  on  Commercial  Edu 
cation  and  Busmess  Progress 


in  connection  with  the  dedication  of  the 

Commerce  building,  April  Sixteen  and 

Seventeen,  Nineteen  Hundred  and 

Thirteen 


URBANA-CHAMPAIGN,  ILLINOIS 

PUBLISHED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY 
1913 

SOUTHERN  BRANCH. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA, 

LIBRARY, 

<-OS  ANGELES,  CALIF. 


65232 


Copyright,  1913 
By  the  University  of  Illinois 


0 

•^  CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introduction  i 

FIRST  SESSION 

BUSINESS   ADMINISTRATION   IN   ITS   RELATION   TO   PUBLIC 
AND   PRIVATE  WELFARE 

The  Public  Concern  in  Improved  Business  Administration ii 

Harry    A.    Wheeler,    President    of    the    Chamber    of    Commerce    of    the 
United  States 

Some  Business  Tendencies  i8 

S.  T.  Henry,  IVestem  Manager  of  the  Engineering  Record 

The  Business  Problems  of  Agriculture  24 

Charles  A.  Ewing,  Attorney 

SECOND  SESSION 

BUSINESS  ADMINISTRATION   IN   ITS  RELATION   TO   PUBLIC 
AND  PRIVATE  WELFARE 

What  a  Budget  May  Mean  to  the  Administration 35 

Frederick  A.   Cleveland,  Chairman  of  the  Commission  on   Economy  and 

Efficiency 

Origin  and  Progress  of  Business  Education  in  the  United  States....  51 

Edmund  J.  Ja?.ies,  President  of  the  University  of  Illinois 

THIRD   SESSION 

COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  SUCCESS 
Commencing  Right 69 

Alexander  H.  Revell,  President  of  Alexander  H.  Revell  &•  Company 

The  Relation  of  a  School  of  Commerce  to  the  Practical  Problems 
OF  Business  84 

Leon    C.    Marshall,    Dean   of   College   of   Commerce   and   Administration, 
University  of  Chicago 

The  Questionnaire  of  the  Illinois  Manufacturers'  Associ.\tion  on 
College  Courses  in  Business  Administration  92 

Julius  W.    Hegeler,    Chairman,   VV.    E.    Clow,   John    E.    Wilder,   Com- 
mittee on  Education 


FOURTH  SESSION 

DEDICATION  OF  THE  COMMERCE  BUILDING 

The   College   Graduate   a   Business    Tyro — A    Matter   of    Adjust- 
ment   lOI 

Howard  Elting,  President  of  the  Chicago  Association   of  Commerce 

Schools  of  Commerce  and   Improvement  of  Business 119 

David  Kinlev,  Director  of  the  Courses  in  Business  Administration,    Uni- 
versity of  Illinois 

Presentation  of  the  Commerce  Building  to  the  President  of  the 
University  133 

W.   L.  Abbott,  President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,   University  of  Illinois 

Acceptance    and    Address — University    Instruction    for    Business 
Men  136 

Edmund  J.  James,  President  of  the  University  of  Illinois 

Presentation  of  the  Portrait  of  the  late  E.  J.  Parker  of  Quincy, 
Illinois 151 

B.   F.   Harris,  Representing  the  Illinois  Bankers'  Association 

Joint  Banquet,  Dedication  of  the  Commerce  Building,  University  of 
Illinois  153 

The  Commercial  Club  of   Urbana  and  The  Chamber  of  Commerce  of 
Champaign 


INTRODUCTION 

The  dedication  of  the  Commerce  Building  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Illinois,  which  was  erected  during  the  year  1912, 
was  made  the  occasion  of  a  Conference  on  Commercial 
Education  and  Business  Progress  extending  over  two  days, 
April  16  and  17, 1913.  The  papers  and  addresses  that  were 
presented  on  this  occasion  constitute  the  present  volume. 
Acknowledgment  should  be  made  at  this  point  of  the  in- 
debtedness of  the  Director  and  Faculty  of  the  Courses  in 
Business  Administration  to  the  many  persons,  especially 
the  speakers,  whose  generous  co-operation  made  this  occa- 
sion a  success. 

The  Commerce  Building  is  the  most  recent  of  several 
new  additions  to  the  physical  plant  at  the  University  of 
Illinois,  and  is  devoted  to  the  study  of  economics,  com- 
merce, public  and  private  finance,  railway  administration, 
money  and  banking,  business  organization  and  manage- 
ment, accountancy,  insurance,  statistics,  and  related  sub- 
jects. In  explanation  of  the  significance  of  the  erection  and 
dedication  to  such  uses  of  this  building,  a  circular  was 
published  upon  this  occasion,  which  may  properly  be  quoted 
at  this  point. 

The  Courses  in  Business  Administration 

The  University  of  Illinois  showed  an  early  interest  in 
the  training  of  business  men.  The  first  circular  of  infor- 
mation published  in  1868  declared  it  to  be  one  of  the  aims 
of  the  institution  to  prepare  men  "for  the  arduous  and 
riskful  responsibilities  of  the  merchant  and  business  man." 
The  original  nine  departments  of  the  University  included 
one  of  "Commercial  Science  and  Art,"  in  charge  of  which 
was  placed  Captain  Edward  Snyder,  subsequently  Pro- 
fessor of  German  and  Dean  of  the  College  of  Literature 
and  Science.     In    1870,    the    University    rearranged    its 

1 


2  COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

whole  curriculum,  and  the  commercial  department  was 
thereafter  called  the  "School  of  Commerce."  Book- 
keeping, commercial  calculation,  and  commercial  corre- 
spondence were  the  principal  subjects  of  the  course. 

In  1878,  an  attempt  was  made  to  raise  the  standards 
of  the  School  of  Commerce  by  adding  a  second  year's 
course,  but  there  was  little  call  for  such  a  development, 
and  on  Septemeber  10, 1879,  the  Board  of  Trustees  passed  a 
resolution  to  the  effect  that  "the  course  of  studies  in  the 
'School  of  Commerce'  is  more  extensive  than  is  practicable 
to  teach  at  the  present  time.''  On  June  10,  1880,  the  Board 
voted  to  discontinue  the  school.  The  attempt  to  construct 
a  university  school  of  commerce  along  the  lines  of  a  "busi- 
ness college"  had  proved  unsuccessful.  The  school  had 
done  little  more  than  to  prepare  clerks  and  bookkeepers. 
It  had  not  been  realized  that  the  function  of  a  university 
school  of  commerce  was  to  prepare  for  future  leadership  in 
economic  enterprise,  not  for  clerkships.  Twenty-two  years 
passed  before  interest  in  university  commercial  education 
was  revived.  The  abandonment  of  the  first  school  of  com- 
merce was  an  inauspicious  event  but,  in  reality,  a  beneficial 
one,  since  it  put  an  end  to  the  "business  college"  conception 
of  university  commercial  education,  and  offered  a  clear 
field  for  the  re-establisliment  of  the  work  on  its  only  proj^er 
basis,  that  of  economic  science. 

About  1899-1000,  several  of  the  leading  universities  of 
the  country  had  become  convinced  of  the  desirability  of  a 
more  systematic  organization  of  courses  that  should  pre- 
pare students  for  careers  in  commerce.  To  phice  the  Uni- 
versity of  Illinois  in  line  with  this  movement,  an  appropria- 
tion wiis  asked  for.  It  was  obvious  to  iho  Tionrd  of  Trus- 
tees that  an  excellent  foundation  for  such  ex})ansion  had 
already  been  laid  by  the  department  of  economics,  and, 
accordingly,  an  appeal  for  funds  was  made  to  the  legisla- 
ture. An  appropriation  was  iiiMde  nnd,  in  1902,  the  Scliool 
of  Coninicrce  was  re-established  under  the  title  of  "The 
Courses  of  Training  for  Business,"  Professor  Kinley  being 
aytpoiritcd    Director.     Two  ndditional  ])rofessorsliips  were 


INTRODUCTION  3 

established — one  in  commerce,  and  the  other  in  industry 
and  transportation. 

The  effect  of  the  new  policy  was  immediately  apparent. 
The  total  number  of  registrations  in  courses  in  economics 
had  been  253  for  the  two  semesters  of  1901-1902.  In 
1902-1903,  this  increased  to  309 ;  in  1903-1904  to  735 ;  by 
1900-1907,  it  liad  reached  1,143.  This  striking  increase 
came  about  not  only  because  a  larger  number  of  students 
elected  a  full  four-years  course  in  business,  but  because 
many  sought  some  of  the  courses  to  supplement  their  other 
studies. 

The  success  achieved  by  the  courses  led,  in  1907,  to 
an  increase  of  appropriation,  which  enabled  expansion  to 
be  made  in  the  following  groups  of  work :  railway  adminis- 
tration, accountancy,  and  industrial  history.  The  con- 
tinued interest  of  the  general  administration  of  the  Univer- 
sity in  the  work  of  business  training  had  been  insured  by 
the  election  of  Edmund  J.  James,  at  one  time  Director  of 
the  Wharton  School  of  Economics  and  Finance  at  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  to  the  presidency  of  the  Uni- 
versity, in  1904. 

The  growth  in  enrollment  since  1907  has  been  marked. 
The  registration  in  the  courses  has  increased  to  2,125  for 
the  year  1912-1913,  representing  about  1,500  individuals,  of 
whom  225  are  registered  for  full  four-year  courses  prepar- 
ing specifically  for  business  careers.  The  rapid  increase  in 
courses  and  students  early  brought  into  prominence  the 
urgent  need  of  special  accommodation  for  the  work  in 
commerce.  The  business  interests  of  the  state  soon  saw 
that,  to  secure  full  service  from  the  courses,  a  special  build- 
ing was  required.  With  their  help,  the  legislature  was  con- 
vinced of  the  necessity,  and,  though  the  amount  requested 
by  the  Board  of  Trustees  was  not  granted,  an  appropriation 
of  |125,000  was  made,  in  1911,  for  the  erection  of  what  will 
be  known  in  the  future  as  the  Commerce  Building.  The 
building  was  sufficiently  completed  by  February,  1913,  to 
be  ready  for  occupancy,  and  most  of  the  work  of  the  busi- 
ness courses  was  transferred  to  it. 


4:  COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

The  anticipated  advantages  of  the  new  building  are 
being  fully  realized.  The  students  in  business  adminis- 
tration are  beginning  to  feel  an  individuality  previously 
unknown,  the  unprofessional  character  of  their  training 
seems  to  become  more  distinct,  the  instructors  have  been 
brought  into  more  intimate  touch  with  one  another  and 
with  their  students,  much  to  the  advantage  of  all  concerned. 
The  work  in  accountancy,  statistics,  banking,  railway 
administration,  commerce,  and  in  other  subjects  is  now 
capable  of  being  developed,  and  will  be  developed,  to  a 
degree  of  practical  eflBciency  unattainable  in  the  past.  And 
it  is  not  an  unpleasing  thought  to  the  citizens  of  Illinois, 
as  Avell  as  to  the  members  of  the  University,  that,  in  develop- 
ing its  facilities  for  the  training  of  men  to  fill  positions  of 
responsibility  in  both  public  and  private  administrations, 
the  State  of  Illinois  has  placed  itself  in  the  vanguard  of 
educational  progress. 

Much  has  been  done,  during  the  past  eleven  years,  in 
the  development  of  the  courses  in  business  administration, 
but  much  still  remains  to  be  done.  There  are  already 
indications  that  the  accommodations  of  the  new  Commerce 
Building  will  not  be  adequate  to  the  demands  that  will  be 
made  upon  it.  It  is  not  merely  a  case  of  the  provision 
of  recitation  rooms.  Modern  methods  of  instruction  in 
what  may  fitly  be  termed  business  technology  call  for 
generous  provisions  of  museums,  laboratories,  instrument 
ror)iiis,  and  so  forth.  To  meet  the  actual  needs  of  the  busi- 
ness world,  it  will  be  necessary  to  expand  the  courses  in 
accountancy,  business  organization  and  practice,  commer- 
cial law,  and  other  subjects,  and  new  courses  in  such 
subjects  as  salesmanship,  advertising,  and  secretarial  work 
are  being  called  for.  Two  years  have  elapsed  since  the 
building  was  antliorized.  The  enrollment  of  students 
taking  work  in  ccoiiomics  and  commerce  during  these 
two  years  has  increased  forty  per  cent.  Such  progress 
shows  a  lively  appreciation  of  the  benefits  of  training  in 
IniKincss  sul)jects,  throws  a  corresponding  obligation  upon 
the  University  and  the  State  to  see  that  this  desire  for 


INTRODUCTION  5 

economic  eflQciency  on  the  part  of  the  youth  of  the  State  is 
met  by  provision  of  proper  and  adequate  facilities. 

The  Commerce  Building 

The  new  Commerce  Building  is  centrally  located  on  the 
University  Campus,  standing  a  little  south  of  University 
Hall,  and  facing  on  Burrill  Avenue.  In  its  architecture, 
the  building  harmonizes  with  the  other  structures  on  the 
south  Campus,  though  differing  from  them  considerably 
in  style.  The  first  story  and  the  cornice  are  constructed 
of  white  stone,  while  the  rest  is  in  brick  of  the  type  used 
in  the  adjacent  buildings.  The  east  facade  is  the  only 
part  of  the  present  structure  which  will  show  when  the 
building  is  completed.  This  facade  is  somewhat  more 
elaborate  in  its  detail  than  is  the  case  of  any  other  build- 
ing on  the  Campus.  Its  most  striking  feature  is  the  broad 
entrance,  flanked  by  large  stone  pylons  supporting  massive 
bronze  lanterns. 

The  spacious  but  simply  designed  entrance  hall,  with 
marble  w^ainscot  and  low  vaulted  ceiling,  leads  directly  to  a 
large  lecture  room  seated  in  amphitheater  fashion,  which 
furnishes  comfortable  accommodations  for  several  large 
lecture  courses.  The  room  is  well  lighted  and  ventilated 
and  will  be  equipped  with  the  most  improved  type  of  lan- 
tern for  stereopticon  illustration.  Corridors  leading  north 
and  south  from  the  entrance  liall  give  access  to  two  otlier 
large  lecture  rooms,  to  the  offices  of  the  Director  and  Assist- 
ant Director  of  the  Courses  in  Business  Administration, 
and  to  the  stairways  leading  to  the  upper  floors. 

On  the  second  floor  are  located  the  offices  of  the  pro- 
fessors of  railway  administration  and  commerce,  a  large 
lecture  room,  seating  about  one  hundred,  and  equipped 
with  a  lantern  for  the  special  use  of  the  courses  in 
commercial  subjects,  and  two  smaller  class  rooms  for  the 
use  of  advanced  classes  in  business  administration.  The 
statistics  and  commerce  laboratories  and  the  commerce 
reading-room  are  also  located  on  this  floor.   The  statistics 


6  COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

laboratory  is  being  equipped  with  the  machines,  apparatus, 
and  books  necessary  for  the  most  advanced  statistical  inves- 
tigation along  all  lines.  The  commerce  laboratory  is  fur- 
nished with  an  extensive  collection  of  commercial  products, 
maps,  charts,  etc.  In  the  reading  room,  current  financial 
and  trade  newspapers  and  periodicals,  as  well  as  general 
reference  works  in  commerce,  will  be  kept  on  file. 

On  the  third  floor  are  the  accountancy  rooms,  addi- 
tional class  rooms,  and  the  offices  of  the  professors  of  indus- 
try and  accountancy  and  of  the  instructors  in  the  business 
courses.  The  rooms  for  the  use  of  the  courses  in  account- 
ancy consist  of  a  laboratory  and  a  machine  room.  The 
accountancy  laboratory,  about  eighty  feet  long  and  thirty 
feet  wide,  is  the  largest  room  in  the  building.  It  is  fur- 
nished with  drafting  tables  for  the  use  of  students  in 
designing  accounting  forms  and  handling  the  books  used 
in  the  accounting  courses.  Eventually,  the  accountancy 
machine  room  will  be  more  fully  equipped  with  the  various 
machines  used  in  business  and  accounting  offices.  Many 
of  these  machines  are  electrically  operated  and  the  neces- 
sary connections  have  been  installed  in  the  room. 

As  a  whole,  the  building  is  substantially  constructed, 
simple  in  plan,  and  convenient  and  well  adapted  to  the 
jjurpose  for  which  it  is  intended. 

Program 

The  program  of  the  Conference  on  Commercial  Educa- 
tion and  Business  Progress  consisted  of  three  parts.  On 
the  first  day  the  general  topic  was  Business  Administration 
in  its  Kelation  to  Public  and  Private  Welfare,  and  in  the 
papers  read  at  the  two  sessions  held,  the  twofold  aspect  of 
business  Mduiinistration  was  clearly  brought  out.  On  the 
morning  of  Thursday  the  second  conference  was  held  on 
the  general  subject  of  Commercial  Education  and  Business 
Ruccoss;  here  the  need  of  training  for  business  was  empha- 
sized. In  the  afternoon  the  formal  exercises  of  the  dedica- 
tion took  place  at  a  general  University  convocation.     In 


INTRODUCTION  7 

the  evening  a  successful  and  largely  attended  dinner  was 
given  at  the  Armory,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce  of  Cliampaign,  and  the  Commercial  Club  of 
Urbana.  The  keynote  of  the  evening's  addresses  was  co- 
operation. The  following  is  the  program  of  the  conference 
as  a  whole: 

I.  Conference,  Wednesday,,  April  i6 

"Business  Administration  in  Its  Relation  to  Public 
and  Private  Welfare,"  W.  B.  McKinley,  President  of  the 
Illinois  Traction  System,  Chairman. 

Afternoon  Session,  The  Commerce  Building,  2:30  p.m. 

"The  Public  Concern  in  Improved  Business  Adminis- 
tration," Harry  A.  Wheeler,  President  of  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  of  the  United  States. 

"Some  Business  Tendencies  of  the  Day,"  S.  T.  Henry, 
Western  Manager  of  the  Engineering  Record. 

"The  Business  Problems  of  Agriculture,"  Chas.  A. 
Ewing,  Decatur,  Illinois. 

Discussion. 

Evening  Session,  Morrow  Hall,  7  130  p.m. 

"What  a  Budget  May  Mean  to  the  Administration,'^ 
Frederick  A.  Cleveland,  Chairman  of  the  President's  Com- 
mission on  Economy  and  Efficiency. 

"Business  Administration,"  Edmund  J.  James,  Presi- 
dent of  the  University. 

II.  Conference,  Thursday,  April  17 

"Commercial  Education  and  Business  Success,"  W.  L. 
Abbott,  President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  Chairman. 

The  Commerce  Building,  9:30  a.m. 

"Commencing  Kiglit,"  Alexander  H.  Bevell,  President 
of  Alexander  H.  Revell  &  Company. 

"The  Relation  of  a  Scliool  of  Commerce  to  the  Practi- 
cal Problems  of  Business,"  Leon  C.  Marshall,  Dean  of  the 
College  of  Commerce  and  Administration,  The  University 
of  Chicago. 


8  COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

The  Report  of  the  Committee  on  College  Courses  in 
Business  Administration.  Presented  by  Charles  L.  Stew- 
art, Research  Assistant  in  Economics,  University  of 
Illinois. 

Discussion. 

III.     Convocation 

The  Dedication  of  the  Commerce  Building,  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  University,  presiding. 

The  Auditorium,  3  :oo  p.m. 

Prelude,  the  University  Band. 

Invocation,  Reverend  Doctor  McClelland,  President  of 
Knox  College. 

"The  College  Graduate  a  Business  Tyro — a  Matter 
of  Adjustment,"  Howard  Elting,  President  of  the  Chicago 
Association  of  Commerce. 

"Schools  of  Commerce  and  Improvement  of  Business," 
David  Kinley,  Director  of  the  Courses  in  Business  Adminis- 
tration. 

Presentation  of  the  Commerce  Building  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  University,  W.  L.  Abbott,  President  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees. 

Acceptance  and  Address,  President  Edmund  Janes 
James. 

Presentation  of  the  Portrait  of  the  late  E.  J.  Parker, 
of  Quincy,  Illinois.    Presented  by  Mrs.  Parker. 

Address  on  Behalf  of  the  Illinois  Bankers'  Association 
by  B.  F.  Harris,  Past  President  of  the  Association. 

Recessional  March,  the  University  Band. 

Adjournment  to  the  Commerce  Building. 

Prayer  of  Dedication,  Reverend  Doctor  McClelland. 

IV.     Dinner 

The  Armory,  6:30  p.m. 

Sul)Hcriy)tion  Dinner,  in  honor  of  the  Dedication,  given 
by  the  ('liniiibcr  of  Commerce  of  Ciianipjiign  and  the  Com- 
mercial Club  of  Urbiina. 


FIRST  SESSION 

BUSINESS   ADMINISTRATION   IN   ITS   RELATION  TO 
PUBLIC    AND    PRIVATE    WELFARE 


The  Public  Concern  in  Improved  Business 
Administration 

Harry  A.  Wheeler 
President  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the  United  States 

The  public  concern  in  improving  business  administra- 
tion may  mean  the  interest  or  concern  which  the  public  has 
in  improving  business  administration,  or  it  may  mean  the 
interest  or  concern  which  the  public  should  have,  I  am 
not  quite  clear  in  my  own  mind  as  to  which  Avas  intended 
by  the  committee  in  opening  the  program  with  this  topic. 
It  may  be  presumed  that  the  public  is  deeply  interested 
and  concerned  regarding  an  improvement  of  eflSciency  in 
business  administration.  But  as  yet,  so  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  observe,  there  has  been  no  definite  evidence  of 
public  interest  in  this  question  to  the  end  of  hearty  public 
co-operation.  Now  by  that  I  do  not  mean  that  there  has 
been  any  lack  of  giving  of  public  funds  for  the  construction 
of  buildings  like  this  for  the  maintenance  of  commercial 
and  industrial  efficiency  courses,  for  money  has  been  given 
freely  out  of  public  funds  for  this  work  in  order  that  a 
higher  scale  may  be  evident  in  every  branch  of  human 
endeavor;  but  if  production  due  to  the  increased  efficiency 
is  on  the  other  hand  offset  by  new  elements  of  cost  that  are 
in  no  wise  related  to  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  product — if 
efficiency  in  production,  efficiency  in  salesmanship,  effi- 
ciency in  accountancy  and  financing,  are  obtained  by  devis- 
ing systems  whose  expense  of  maintenance  must  be  consid- 
ered as  an  offset  to  these  things,  the  new  element  of  cost 
balancing  efficiency  due  to  the  actual  value  of  the  prod- 
uct— then  efficiency  has  failed  in  its  true  aim  and  pur- 
pose. For  the  true  aim  of  efficiency  can  be  only  to  maintain 
the  highest  standard  of  a  product  and  to  cheapen  its  cost 
of  production  so  that  it  may  be  offered  to  the  general  pub- 
lic, the  ultimate  consumer,  at  a  lower  price  than  heretofore. 
Obviously,  all  the  efficiency  that  may  be  taught,  if  it  leads 

^  11 


12        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND   BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

to  no  more  than  to  increase  the  elements  of  expense,  if  the 
new  elements  of  expense  cater  to  the  taste  or  please  the 
eve,  or  if  in  the  distribution  the  cost  of  distribution  is  made 
sufficiently  great  to  offset  the  savings  of  efficiency  in  pro- 
duction, then  you  have  absolutely  lost  the  value  of  effi- 
ciency. Now  I  am  not  taking  this  particular  point  of  view 
for  the  purpose  of  following  it  out  to  any  logical  conclu- 
sion or  argument  as  to  whether  we  are  in  the  day  of  unwise 
efficiency  through  the  cutting  off  of  certain  elements  of  ex- 
pense in  one  direction  and  adding  in  another,  so  that  we 
find  ultimate  equalization.  That  would  be  too  narrow  a 
subject  for  us  to  consider  this  afternoon.  Neither  am  I 
inclined  to  pursue  the  topic,  which  would  perhaps  be  rather 
negative,  but  I  bring  it  to  your  minds  for  this  reason: 
there  can  be  no  efficiency  of  production  or  of  distribution, 
unaccompanied  by  public  co-operation,  that  will  ultimately 
aid  the  work  for  which  money  has  been  spent  and  courses 
have  been  founded.  Our  difficulty  in  this  country  today  is 
the  endeavor  not  to  induce  the  manufacturer  to  adopt 
efficient  methods  of  production,  nor  the  distributer  to  adopt 
efficient  methods  of  salesmanship  and  accounting,  but 
rather  to  impress  upon  the  people  at  large  the  necessity  of 
co-operation  in  all  of  these  efficient  methods  in  order  that 
after  all,  in  the  final  analysis,  the  cost  of  living  may  be 
reduced,  the  value  of  production  may  be  increased,  and 
good  may  come  to  the  people  at  large. 

It  is  a  matter  of  public  education,  or  of  education  of 
the  public,  quite  as  much  as  it  is  a  matter  of  study.  There 
is  a  question  whether  the  manufacturer  will  find  as  he 
pursues  the  policy  of  efficiency  in  production,  that  labor, 
as  a  part  of  the  public,  is  altogether  in  sympathy  with  the 
efficiency  methods  that  are  adopted  and  introduced.  There 
is  a  question  in  the  mind  of  labor  today  as  to  whether  the 
efficiency  that  comes  from  getting  the  highest  production 
out  of  a  given  piece  of  machinery  is  or  is  not  in  the  interest 
of  labor.  Running  through  the  entire  realm  of  efficiency 
ojicratioTi,  in  shop,  or  in  the  mill,  or  in  the  office,  or  in  the 
mine,  or  in  ihc  field,  there  is  the  same  general  element  to 


PUBLIC   CONCERN   IN   BUSINESS  ADMINISTRATION  13 

contend  with;  the  agriculturist  cannot  see  that  it  is  to  his 
advantage  to  introduce  high  efficiency  unless  he  has  first 
had  the  demonstration  that  it  will  increase  his  profit,  and 
from  a  selfish  point  of  view  he  has  been  inclined  to  judge 
from  old  time  methods.  All  along  the  realm  of  our  eco- 
nomic life,  in  our  agricultural  pursuits,  and  so  up  and 
down  the  range  of  production  of  those  products  which  are 
natui'al  and  those  products  which  are  converted,  we  find 
the  same  difficulty  that  efficiency  must  be  a  double-barreled 
proposition  and  must  have  its  base  in  the  production  of 
the  farm  or  the  production  of  the  mill,  and  must  have  its 
co-operation  in  the  hearts  and  the  minds  and  in  the  will  of 
the  people  themselves.  For  there  is  no  ultimate  value  in 
reducing  the  cost  of  an  article  in  the  mill  unless  you  have 
certain  advantages  of  co-operation  with  the  people  at  large 
to  incline  them  to  accept  this  particular  article  without 
frills  and  without  favors — things  that  make  for  intrinsic 
value  and  that  reduce  cost,  and  therefore  reduce  cost  of 
living. 

I  was  told  to  speak  for  twenty-five  minutes.  If  I  were 
to  try  to  pursue  the  advantages  of  administration  in  re- 
duced cost  of  production,  or  of  distribution,  I  could  not 
cover  one  single  point  of  either  of  these  phases  of  this  sub- 
ject in  the  time  allotted.  I  am  going  to  take  an  entirely 
different  course  than  that  because,  as  President  James  has 
said,  the  conference  is  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  what 
may  be  done  with  this  plant  which  you  have  created  here 
at  the  University  of  Illinois  to  make  it  effective  and  to 
make  it  useful  to  the  people  of  the  State  and  the  people 
of  the  country.  It  can  be  of  the  greatest  service  if  it  is  used 
to  create  a  healthy  public  sentiment  that  shall  be  co-opera- 
tive with  the  desire  for  greater  efficiency  and  for  better 
business  methods.  There  is  no  one  source  of  instruction 
that  will  reach  the  public  so  well  as  through  the  organiza- 
tion known  in  this  State  and  in  other  states  as  chambers 
of  commerce,  or  boards  of  trade,  or  trades  organizations. 
In  a  decade  there  has  come  a  change  over  the  commercial 
life  of  this  country.    Organizations,  originally  established 


14        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

for  the  purpose  of  stimulating  trade,  have  broadened  the 
scope  of  their  action  until  today  their  work  is  largely  civic 
and  secondarily  commercial.  After  all,  only  as  civic  condi- 
tions are  ideal  can  commercial  conditions  be  made  ideal. 
These  organizations  in  ten  years  have  sprung  up  all 
over  the  country  in  great  numbers.  Every  city  of  any  mag- 
nitude has  many;  every  town  has  several,  oftentimes,  and 
one  surely — organizations  where  the  citizens  in  business 
pursuits  join  together  for  the  purpose  of  stimulating  in- 
terest in  their  city,  of  increasing  its  industrial  prosperity, 
and  its  commercial  prosperity,  and  of  making  it  a  better 
place  to  live.  These  organizations  have  become  educative 
factors  not  only  to  the  industrial  community,  but  likewise 
to  that  community  which  has  to  do  with  production, 
whether  it  be  of  the  field,  or  of  distribution  whether  it  be 
of  farm  products,  or  natural  products,  or  products  of  the 
mill.  And  it  is  the  most  helpful  and  most  hopeful  sign  in 
our  country  that  business  men,  through  these  organizations, 
have  come  to  see  their  duty  to  the  general  public  in  an 
entirely'  different  light.  It  is  not  a  question,  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  of  whether  a  product  is  produced  at  the  lowest 
possible  price,  or  the  mill  is  kept  running  at  the  lowest  pos- 
sible cost,  or  whether  salesmanship  is  of  the  highest  possible 
order ;  but  the  true  essence  of  progress  in  business  adminis- 
tration, of  eflSciency  in  production,  and  efficiency  in  distri- 
bution, comes  from  a  knowledge  of  the  relation  of  business 
to  tlie  government  of  the  state,  and  of  the  city,  aud  of  the 
nation,  of  relating  the  affairs  of  one's  daily  life  in  mill,  or 
in  shop,  or  in  the  store,  to  the  broader  things  that  have  to 
do  with  public  concern;  to  find  the  relationship  that  exists 
between  legislation  and  business,  and  to  help  those  who 
have  to  do  witli  our  legislation  by  the  counsel  and  the  wise 
advice  of  those  who  have  to  do  with  the  actual  production 
of  our  fommoditios,  and  tlioir  distribution  ;  the  broader  out- 
]of)k  rather  than  tliat  solely  from  the  selfish  point  of  view 
of  cIVK'iency  in  administrative  methods,  or  in  production, 
solely  for  the  sake  of  being  able  to  gatlier  a  few  more  dol- 
lars at  the  end  of  the  year.    These  chambers  of  commerce 


PUBLIC  CONCERN  IN  BUSINESS  ADMINISTRATION  15 

have  for  their  purpo.se  the  broader  development  of  the 
business  men,  with  respect  to  all  things  that  relate  to  effi- 
ciency of  production  and  distribution;  and,  carrying  out 
that  idea,  men  usually  have  a  broad  vision  and  see  beyond 
the  lines  of  their  own  particular  concerns  into  the  concerns 
that  are  of  the  nation,  and  in  so  doing  they  not  only  be- 
come better  producers  and  better  citizens,  but  they  have  the 
broader  sympathy  wliich  will  lead  them  into  a  kindlier 
relationship  with  others  and  a  more  cordial  consideration 
for  legislators,  and  in  the  end  to  better  economic  conditions 
for  our  entire  country. 

I  bring  these  views  of  the  question  to  you  for  this  rea- 
son: I  hope  you  will  discuss  in  this  college  of  commerce 
the  necessity  for  creating  a  strong  force  of  men  who  can 
lead  in  the  movement  of  which  I  have  spoken.  There  are 
thousands  of  organizations  in  this  country  today  of  busi- 
ness men.  There  are  many  hundreds  of  them  that  are  effi- 
cient and  enthusiastic  in  so  far  as  they  have  leadership, 
but  there  is  an  absolute  dearth  of  men  who  have  been 
trained  to  lead  in  these  particular  fields  of  action.  There 
is  a  profession  awaiting  those  who  have  to  do  with  the 
making  of  men  to  fill  places  of  prominence  and  of  power 
in  this  country,  a  profession  that  is  just  as  real  as  the  law 
or  as  medicine.  The  profession  is  that  of  the  civic  secre- 
tary, the  civic  commercial  'secretary,  who  may  pass 
through  the  various  stages  of  his  own  profession  from 
small  to  large  organizations  in  cities  of  small  size,  and  then 
on  up  through  the  scale,  filling  places  that  are  as  important 
as  any  office  or  any  place  that  a  man  can  be  called  to  fill 
in  this  country.  This  school,  joined  with  others  of  like 
character  in  this  country,  should,  in  my  judgment,  seek 
to  establish  a  course  that  shall  prepare  the  men  who  go 
through  this  college  and  througli  this  School  of  Commerce, 
to  take  the  places  that  are  so  freely  opened  and  to  fill  the 
places  that  are  so  badly  in  need  of  being  filled  today.  In 
the  work  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  with  which  I  am 
connected  there  is  not  a  single  week  passes  that  we  do 
not  have  applications   from   organizations  all   over  this 


16         COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

country  asking  if  we  can  indicate  to  them  men  who  are 
trained  in  this  particular  work,  men  who  can  occupy  a 
place  not  only  close  to  the  municipal  government  of  their 
city,  but  close  to  its  industrial  development,  men  who  will 
stand  in  the  community  as  high  as  any  citizen,  the  impor- 
tance of  whose  work  cannot  be  over-estimated  in  the  devel- 
opment of  the  community.  There  is  no  more  honorable 
profession ;  there  is  none  more  sadly  needed  at  the  present 
time. 

The  graduate  school  of  business  administration  in 
Harvard  is  at  the  present  time  seriously  taking  up  this 
question.  Northwestern  University  has  been  discussing  it. 
Other  universities  will  take  it  up  from  time  to  time,  and 
after  all  there  is  where  the  need  lies  today.  EflQciency  that 
shall  be  broad  enough  not  only  to  cover  the  selfish  need, 
but  the  unselfish  needs  of  the  great  public  concerns  of  this 
country,  that  shall  teach  the  business  men  that  efliciency 
has  to  do  not  only  with  the  better  production  of  his  particu- 
lar product,  or  of  the  making  of  a  cheaper  product,  but  that 
will  make  for  better  conditions  in  his  city,  and  education 
of  the  people  under  his  jurisdiction. 

If  this  School  of  Commerce  will  undertake  to  lay  down 
a  course  that  shall  contain  municipal  government  and  ad- 
ministration— for  efficiency  there  is  as  greatly  needed  as 
in  tlie  manufacturing  plant — that  shall  undertake  to  study 
state  government  and  efficiency  in  the  disposition  of  state 
funds ;  that  shall  undertake  to  do  what  Mr.  Cleveland  has 
done  so  well  in  Washington  in  national  efficiency  and  the 
national  budget;  down  through  all  the  questions  that  have 
to  do  with  commerce  and  with  the  general  civic  conditions 
of  our  country,  and  you  will  find  that  there  are  studies 
wliicli  can  be  jjrepared,  subjects  which  can  be  taught,  that 
will  train  men  for  positions  that  will  be  more  lucrative 
than  other  ])rofossi(ms  now  are.  Men  so  trained  can  render 
not  only  a  service  to  tliemselves  but  a  gi'eat  patriotic  serv- 
ice to  their  country  as  a  result  of  the  years  of  study 
wliich  they  may  give  to  these  subjects,  transportation  and 
Kubjects  of  like  character,  in  addition  to  the  subjects  which 


PUBLIC  CONCERN   IN   BUSINESS  ADMINISTRATION  17 

students  would  naturally  take,  such  as  accountancy,  etc. 
Now  my  ambition  in  this  matter  is  that  there  should  be 
created  as  a  result  of  the  upbuilding  of  these  schools  of 
commerce  within  the  large  universities  of  our  country,  a 
corps  of  young  men  who  are  willing  to  train  themselves  for 
this  important  service,  who  are  willing  to  study  deeply  the 
problems  of  our  day — and  they  are  serious  economic  prob- 
lems that  now  confront  us,  perhaps  more  serious  to  our 
business  and  commercial  interests  than  have  confronted 
those  interests  in  any  previous  time — who  will  carefully 
prepare  themselves  for  those  places  and  fill  them,  and  ren- 
der a  patriotic  service  to  country  while  doing  this,  doing 
great  things  for  themselves,  for  no  more  creditable  place 
can  be  found  than  that  of  leadership  in  organizations  that 
are  meant  for  building  up  the  civic,  commercial,  and  indus- 
trial interests  of  the  community. 


Some  Business  Tendencies  of  the  Day 

S.  T.  Henry 
Western  Manager  of  the  Engineering  Record 

Many  tendencies  of  a  decade  ago  towards  new  meth- 
ods in  tlie  business  world  are  today  recognized  fundamen- 
tals of  business  success.  The  combination  of  scattered 
competing  industries,  the  standardization  of  i^roduction 
and  the  complete  utilization  of  by-products  have  had  devel- 
opment in  this  country  only  during  the  last  fifteen  to 
twenty  years.  The  tremendous  value  of  thorough  studies 
of  efficiency  promotion  in  all  branches  of  business  are  not 
even  yet  fully  appreciated.  Other  business  tendencies  of  at 
least  as  great  importance  as  any  that  have  been  mentioned 
are  now  working  to  the  front.  Close  co-operation  between 
the  manufacturer  and  the  consumer,  generally  termed 
service,  is  one  of  the  strongest  of  these  tendencies  under- 
lying present-day  business. 

Many  a  manufacturer  has  in  the  past  given  what  is 
now  called  service  to  the  consumer  without  appreciating 
fully  just  what  he  was  doing.  The  efficiency  of  many  a 
factory  likewise  has  long  been  high,  simply  on  account  of 
the  wonderful  natural  ability  of  some  individual  or  indi- 
viduals responsible  for  tlie  organization  of  that  factory. 
But  today  conditions  governing  the  efficiency  of  a  factory 
may  be  determined  and  analyzed  with  utmost  certainty. 
The  manner  in  which  service  work  may  be  developed  by 
tlie  manufacturer's  sales  department  is  subject  to  as  close 
analysis  as  is  any  established  business  method.  Indeed, 
many  an  aggressive  producing  organization  already  has  its 
service  policy  as  tlioroughly  established  as  are  its  credit 
methods.  The  undeveloped  possibilities  of  such  service 
sales  work  are  so  vast,  however,  and  so  much  remains  to 
be  done  in  determining  the  manner  in  which  service  work 
can  best  be  undertaken  in  many  industries,  that  this  work 
may  truthfully  still  be  called  a  tendency  of  our  business 
niefliods.  But  it  is  a  tendency  that  force  of  competitive 
circiinistances  will  mold  into  most  concrete  form  in  the 
very  near  future. 

18 


PRESENT  BUSINESS  TENDENCIES  19 

Service  to  tlie  consumer  generally  first  requires  a  study 
of  the  conditions  of  tlie  industry  in  whicli  a  manufacturer's 
products  are  used.  Continual  development  of  products  to 
keep  pace  with  the  changing  needs  of  an  industry  is  the 
next  step.  And  finally,  the  producer  must  so  thoroughly 
demonstrate  to  the  consumer  how  to  adapt  his  products 
to  the  consumer's  conditions  that  satisfaction  is  assured. 
The  success  of  such  a  service  method  of  selling  has  been 
proved  so  conclusively,  that  in  many  fields  competitors 
realize  that  no  other  methods  of  selling  can  meet  it. 

The  ramifications  of  the  service-to-the-consumer  sales 
method  are  extremely  wide.  Mr.  McAdoo  demonstrated 
one  extreme  of  it  in  a  remarkable  way  in  his  operation  of 
the  Hudson  tunnels  connecting  Manhattan  with  the  Jersey 
shore.  He  built  those  tunnels,  he  equipped  them,  and  he 
operated  his  trains  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  traveling 
public.  As  conditions  changed,  he  changed  to  meet  them. 
Not  a  protest  was  made  when  his  company,  because  the 
investment  in  the  tunnels  was  not  earning  a  fair  dividend, 
increased  the  fare  from  five  to  seven  cents  for  a  maximum 
ride  of  four  miles.  But  other  New  York  City  lines  cannot 
get  more  than  five  cents  for  a  twenty-six  mile  ride. 

Another  concrete  example  of  the  success  of  service  to 
the  consumer  in  selling  is  the  results  obtained  by  a  certain 
large  manufacturing  organization  with  electric-railway 
motors.  Several  years  ago  this  company  began  a  most  ex- 
haustive study  of  conditions  to  be  met  by  the  equipment  of 
electrically  operated  cars  for  all  classes  of  service.  The 
situation  was  most  thoroughly  investigated.  The  best 
methods  of  generating  and  distributing  electrical  power 
for  each  general  situation  were  selected.  The  most  efiicient 
design  of  motor  that  would  meet  the  extremely  exacting 
conditions  was  developed.  The  right  way  to  install  these 
motors  was  determined.  The  data  on  which  were  based 
the  many  conclusions  that  had  to  be  reached  as  this  work 
progressed  were  obtained  first-hand  in  the  field  by  the 
manufacturer's  men.  These  data  came  from  the  managers, 
the  operators,  the  motormen,  the  repairmen,  and  in  fact, 


20        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

from  all  electric-railway  employees  who  could  furnish  a 
single  element  by  which  efficiency  of  the  car  motor  equip- 
ment could  be  increased.  Engineering  features  naturally 
controlled  very  largely.  But  financial,  operating,  and 
maintenance  ideas  had  to  be  given  equal  weight  in  devel- 
oping many  details. 

The  work  of  this  company  on  electric-railway  motor 
improvement  extended  over  several  years.  Advances  were 
made  slowly.  But  always  the  consumer  understood  that 
the  wliole  effort  of  the  campaign  was  to  give  him  the  best 
electric-railway  equipment  that  could  be  built.  The  men  of 
the  manufacturing  organization  who  made  these  studies 
had  to  be  far  more  than  ordinary  salesmen.  And  they  soon 
became  recognized  experts  in  their  field.  Consequently, 
the  position  occupied  today  by  this  company  and  its  elec- 
tric-railway motor  salesmen  is  such  that  the  company 
scarcely  recognizes  any  competition.  This  enviable  posi- 
tion was  built  on  service  to  the  consumer. 

Another  example  may  help  indicate  the  certainty  of 
results  from  service  work  in  sales.  A  contract  for  one  of 
the  large  dry  docks  built  by  the  federal  government  was 
awarded  some  years  ago.  The  contractor  failed  on  the 
job.  A  second  and  then  a  third  contractor  were  unable 
to  handle  the  construction  work.  The  contract  finally  was 
awarded  a  fourth  time.  The  first  three  contractors  em- 
ployed material-handling  equipment  generally  used  on 
otlier  similar  work.  A  salesman  of  a  large  manufacturing 
concern  made  a  thorough  study  of  the  reasons  why  the  first 
three  coiitractorK  had  failed.  He  and  other  men  of  his 
organization  studied  the  situation  from  every  point  of 
view.  They  gave  full  recognition  to  the  labor,  financial, 
and  Tiianagement  conditions,  and  to  the  rigid  government 
s[)('(ili('ations,  as  well  as  to  the  physical  situation  involved. 
Tliey  demonstrated  conclusively  that  tlie  equipment  used 
had  been  tlie  jn-iiiiary  cause  of  tlie  previous  failures.  Then, 
based  on  their  investigations,  they  developed  a  better 
metliod  of  handling  the  work  with  equipment  built  by  their 
company.    After  this  idea  was  worked  out  in  complete  de- 


PRESENT  BUSINESS  TENDENCIES  21 

tail,  it  was  presented  to  the  fourth  contractor.  He  imme- 
diately saw  the  value  of  the  suggestion  and  gave  the  com- 
pany an  order  for  over  $100,000  worth  of  its  equipment. 
He  had  been  sold  an  idea.  It  was  service  to  the  consumer 
which  secured  that  business  without  competition.  And 
service  of  a  similar  sort  continued  since  then  has  procured 
for  this  company  nearly  $400,000  worth  of  business  from 
this  single  customer. 

The  work  of  the  association  of  manufacturers  in  vari- 
ous allied  industries  is  an  illustration  of  a  combined  effort 
to  give  service  to  the  consumer.  An  effort  thus  induced 
must,  in  most  cases,  be  continued  by  the  individual  manu- 
facturer with  his  own  customers.  The  investigations  made 
by  the  association  of  the  paving  brick  manufacturers  of 
this  country  show  what  can  be  done  in  this  direction.  To 
the  layman  there  appeared  to  be  little  opportunity  for 
changing  materially  the  manner  in  which  brick  pavements 
formerly  were  laid.  But  years  of  investigation  of  the  be- 
havior of  brick  pavements  were  conducted  by  this  associa- 
tion, in  conjunction  with  engineers  who  designed  and  con- 
tractors who  laid  such  pavements.  These  investigations 
went  into  the  most  minute  details.  As  a  result  of  them,  it 
is  now  practicable  to  build  a  brick  pavement  that  will  give 
many  times  more  years  of  service  than  did  brick  pavements 
constructed  in  the  old  way  at  about  the  same  cost.  The 
manufacturers  of  paving-brick  have  thus  expanded  their 
field  tremendously  simply  by  service  to  the  consumer.  And 
today,  nearly  every  paving-brick  manufacturer  in  the 
United  States  is  oversold. 

The  examples  of  service  which  have  been  mentioned 
refer  largely  to  work  done  by  manufacturers  of  mechanical 
equipment  and  technical  products.  The  manner  in  which 
this  same  service  idea  is  being  carried  out  by  manufactur- 
ers and  distributers  in  every  line  of  industry  could,  how- 
ever, readily  be  shown.  In  the  class  journal  publishing 
field,  with  which  I  am  particularly  familiar,  this  service 
idea  has  become  an  accepted  part  of  the  business.  The  pub- 
lications which  are  not  in  a  position  to  offer  it  are  going 


22        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

backwards.  Those  which  have  developed  it  most  com- 
pletely are  making  the  largest  success.  And  so  it  will  most 
certainly  be  ere  long  in  most  lines  of  industry. 

One  immediately  noticeable  feature  of  this  modern 
method  of  selling  has  been  the  demand  it  creates  for  trained 
men  af  large  natural  ability.  The  salesman  of  the  old 
school  fortunately  is  passing.  Men  who  sell  machinery 
and  equipment  particularly  have  felt  the  need  for  a  broader 
knowledge  of  their  field.  This  need  is  growing  at  a  remark- 
able rate  as  the  service  method  of  selling  becomes  more 
common.  Sales  managers  in  other  lines  of  industry  have 
sensed  the  potentiality  of  properly  trained  men  in  their 
selling  organizations;  men  who  can  study  the  needs  of  their 
field;  men  who  can  assist  in  the  development  of  products 
to  anticipate  these  needs;  and  who  can  accompany  and 
follow  sales  with  expert  advice  on  how  products  can  be 
used  most  efficiently. 

A  very  casual  study  of  the  list  of  men  who  have  gone 
forth  from  the  Engineering  School  of  the  University  of 
Illinois  since  1900  shows  a  surprisingly  large  number  in 
sales  work.  The  same  holds  true  for  the  alumni  of  other 
technical  institutions.  The  reason  is  very  easy  to  find.  The 
manufacturer  of  products  more  or  less  technical  who  uses 
service-selling  metliods  finds  he  must  train  very  much 
longer  a  salesman  with  a  purely  academic  education  than 
he  must  a  man  whose  education  has  been  along  the  purely 
technical  side.  Young  engineers  are  by  no  means  properly 
trained  for  such  sales  work.  But  as  a  class,  they  have 
proved  beyond  question  to  be  the  best  trained  men  avail- 
able for  quick  development  in  service-sales  methods.  The 
great  need  of  progressive  manufacturers  and  distributers 
generally  is  for  men  trained  to  develop  rapidly  in  their  ser- 
vice sales  departments. 

This  need  for  trained  men  in  selling  work  offers  oppor- 
tunities beyond  the  immediate  appreciation  of  those  not 
fully  conversant  with  the  situation.  The  selling  end  of  any 
producing  or  distributing  organization  is  the  end  which 
pjiys  tlie  best  salaries.    And  it  is  the  most  direct  route  to 


PRESENT  BUSINESS  TENDENCIES  23 

the  executive  positions  and  to  financial  control.  With  the 
rapid  growth  of  service-selling  methods  that  is  at  hand, 
this  opportunity  for  the  properly  trained  young  man  is 
most  promising. 

How  men  are  best  to  be  trained  for  specialized  service 
sales  work  remains  to  be  proved.  The  situation  is  quite 
comparable  to  one  which  existed  in  the  engineering  profes- 
sion only  twelve  to  fifteen  years  ago.  About  that  time, 
there  began  the  now  strong  demand  for  better  public  water 
supplies,  better  waste  disposal,  better  housing,  and  better 
sanitation  generally.  There  were  no  men  specially  trained 
to  design,  install  and  operate  tlie  vast  works  required.  On 
the  one  hand  was  the  engineer  with  his  knowledge  of  mate- 
rials and  mechanics;  on  the  other  hand,  the  chemist  and 
biologist  with  their  knowledge  of  the  natural  processes 
involved  in  the  purification  of  water,  the  disposal  of  sew- 
age and  the  like.  Keen  minds  in  many  engineering  schools 
saw  the  demand  for  men  with  a  training  that  embraced 
engineering,  biology, and  chemistry  as  applied  to  sanitation. 
As  a  result,  we  have  now^  sanitary  engineering  as  a  fully 
recognized  branch  of  the  engineering  profession.  And  in 
tliis  brancli  the  details  of  engineering,  biology,  and  chem- 
istry involved  have  unquestionably  been  advanced  more 
rapidly  than  would  have  been  the  case  if  sanitary  engineer- 
ing courses  liad  not  been  established.  Furthermore,  sani- 
tary engineers  are  receiving  continually  better  salaries  and 
are  in  greater  demand  than  are  engineers  of  any  other 
training. 

In  some  similar  manner  the  departments  housed  by 
the  building  w'e  are  to  dedicate  tomorrow  will  meet  the 
need  of  properly  trained  men  for  service-sales  work.  Tliis 
recently  developed  need,  of  such  large  opportunity  to  the 
men  who  will  be  fitted  by  tliese  departments  to  take  advan- 
tage of  it,  is  merely  one  of  the  many  tendencies  in  our  mod- 
ern methods  of  doing  business.  These  trained  men  will 
have  a  chance  through  such  tendencies  to  work  with  as 
much  imagination,  with  as  much  enthusiasm,  and  with  as 
much  satisfaction  as  any  artist  ever  enjoyed. 


The  Business  Problems  of  Agriculture 

Chas.  a.  Ewing 

When  I  received  the  program  arranged  for  this  occa- 
sion, and  saw  the  names  and  number  of  distinguished  and 
scholarly  men  who  were  to  address  you,  I  felt  embarrassed. 
You  will  not,  I  am  sure,  think  me  so  presumptuous  as  to 
lay  claim  to  any  part  of  your  attention  for  myself.  I  am 
content  to  remain  obscure  that  you  may  devote  your  undi- 
vided attention  to  my  subject;  for  it,  I  have  no  apologies 
to  offer;  it  needs  none.  In  its  importance  agriculture 
stands  easily  first.  With  its  welfare  our  own,  whether  as 
private  individuals,  or  as  a  commonwealth,  is  indissolubly 
linked.  We  are  here  today  to  mark  a  new  epoch  in  its  de- 
velopment, and  can  rejoice  in  common  over  its  progress. 

The  man  with  the  hoe  has  cut  a  wide  swath  of  recent 
years.  He  has  been  industriously  working  in  many  differ- 
ent fields,  turning  over  much  that  is  new  and  interesting. 
You  will  not  be  surprised  to  see  him  looking  over  the  pal- 
ings at  this  new  field  of  endeavor,  trying  to  find  a  gap  in 
the  fence,  and  wondering  how  it  had  escaped  his  notice  so 
long. 

It  is  less  tlian  a  dozen  years  since  the  late  Honorable 
L.  H.  Kerrick  here  dedicated  to  the  master  science  of  agri- 
culture one  of  the  largest  buildings  in  the  world  ever  de- 
voted to  that  work.  Only  nineteen  students  were  at  that 
time  enrolled  in  the  agricultural  course.  Tliink  of  the 
vision  of  tlie  men  to  wliom  it  appeared  wise  to  commence 
on  such  a  scale,  and  their  faith  in  its  justification!  Who 
would  Imve  believed  then,  that  in  the  brief  span  of  a  decade 
that  great  l)uil(ling  would  be  full  and  overflowing,  wholly 
iiuuhMjuale  to  accommodate  the  students  crowding  through 
its  doors;  yet  such  is  the  case. 

Not  by  any  moans  the  least  of  the  agricultural  prob- 
lems of  the  last,  and  of  the  next  ten  years,  has  been,  and 
will  be,  affording  the  opportunity  to  all  seeking  instruc- 

24 


BUSINESS    PROBLEMS   OF   AGRICULTURE  25 

tion  along  these  lines;  where  to  find  the  teachers  and  pro- 
fessors, and  where  to  get  accommodations  and  equipment 
for  their  work. 

Our  turning  from  this  Art  of  Arts  to  this  Science  of 
Sciences  has  been  the  educational  phenomenon  of  our  his- 
tory. The  discovery  of  this  young  giant  slumbering  quietly 
in  our  midst  affected  us  a  good  deal  as  did  Gulliver  the 
Lilliputians.  We  set  about  capturing  him  with  all  possible 
haste,  and  making  him  fast  before  he  awakened.  Teachers, 
writers,  and  editors  combined  their  forces  and  trained 
their  batteries  on  him.  Special  trains  were  pressed  into 
service  to  carry  news  from  the  front.    So  it  still  goes  on. 

The  progress  made  has  been  as  remarkable  as  the  work 
itself.  All  that  has  been  learned  about  soil  and  fertility, 
crops  and  tillage,  the  breeding  and  feeding  of  our  domestic 
animals,  has  added  wonderfully  to  our  store  of  knowledge, 
and  it  is  a  source  of  just  pride  that  our  own  state  institu- 
tion has  been  in  the  forefront  of  the  contributors. 

All  this  you  say  may  be  true;  even  so,  why  mention 
it  on  this  occasion?  it  you  will  refer  to  the  booklet  in  re- 
gard to  this  building  you  will  notice  on  the  cover  it  says : 
"University  of  Illinois,  Commerce  Building,  devoted  to  the 
study  of  Economics,  Commerce,  Public  and  Private 
Finance,  Railway  Administration,  Money  and  Banking, 
Business  Organization  and  Management,  Accountancy, 
Insurance,  Statistics";  then  there  follows  a  row  of  little 
dots.  They  confuse  some  who  do  not  know  what  they  mean, 
but  to  those  who  are  familiar  with  this  institution,  the  con- 
tents of  its  charter  and  intention  of  its  founders,  the  mean- 
ing is  clear.  They  refer  to  the  foregoing  subjects,  and 
should  be  translated  thus:  "in  their  relation  to  agricul- 
ture." It  would  have  been  better  to  print  that  instead  of 
dotting  it,  as  it  has  been  intimated  that  agriculture  did  not 
belong  in  this  department;  that  these  other  subjects  needed 
the  space;  but  that  a  corner  might  be  found,  provided  it 
would  come  in  quietly  and  create  as  little  disturbance  as 
possible.  This  reminds  one  of  the  story  of  the  Arab  who 
let  the  camel  put  just  its  nose  inside  his  tent ;  and  you  all 


26         COMMEKCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

remember  how  it  ended.  The  development  of  the  business 
side  of  agriculture  will  be  commensurate  with  its  scientific 
development,  and  in  ten  years — yes,  in  five,  this  building 
will  not  accommodate  you  all. 

It  is  agriculture  that  affords  the  largest  field  of  op- 
portunity to  all  these  subjects.  Studied  in  their  relation 
to  it,  let  us  hope  that  Economics  will  help  us  eliminate 
the  great  waste  of  time,  labor,  equipment,  and  produce 
which  now  occurs  on  our  farms;  that  Commerce  will  aid 
us  in  solving  the  perplexing  question  of  distribution,  so 
that  the  farmer  may  receive  a  fairer  share  of  the  consum- 
er's dollar,  and  still  let  the  consumer's  dollar  buy  more  of 
what  the  farmer  has  to  sell;  that  Finance  will  discover  a 
way  to  overcome  the  fluctuation  in  value  of  from  thirty  to 
one  hundred  per  cent  of  the  great  staple  crops  of  corn  and 
cattle,  wheat  and  oats,  which  now  occurs  in  a  few  months' 
time — usually  the  lower  figure  when  the  producer  parts 
with  it,  and  the  higher  before  passing  into  the  hands  of 
the  consumer;  that  Railway  Administration  will  find  how 
to  relieve  us  from  the  car  shortage  "\j''hich  now  seems  to  be 
coincident  with  the  harvesting  and  moving  of  a  crop.  The 
time  will  come  when  the  development  of  our  waterways 
will  be  fostered  by  our  railways.  They  will  be  glad  to  turn 
over  to  them,  so  far  as  possible,  the  big  bulky  freights,  and 
devote  their  equipment  more  largely  to  the  rapid,  higher- 
priced  freights — a  benefit  to  all  parties  concerned.  No  less 
an  authority  than  James  J.  Hill  is  quoted  as  saying:  "For 
the  expense  of  moving  one  ton  of  bulk  freight  one  mile  on 
wlic'ols  he  could  move  it  twenty-six  miles  on  water;  and 
equipped  with  proper  terminal  facilities,  a  boat  would  beat 
a  box  car  to  death !"  In  addition,  this  development  would 
minimize  our  enormous  annual  loss  from  floods,  and  create 
a  vjist  niintiint  of  j)ower.  Let  us  liope  tliat  Money  and  Hank- 
ing will  be  able  to  extend  credit  to  farmers  on  more  reason- 
able rate  of  interest  than  tliey  enjoy  at  present,  as  is  done 
in  other  countries;  that  Business  Organization  and  Man- 
agement may  get  out  into  the  country  and  revolutionize 
tlie  |>r('sent   methods  of  doing  business,   introducing  the 


BUSINESS    PROBLEMS   OB^   AGRICULTURE  27 

benefits  of  co-operation  and  teaching  the  value  of  the 
finished  product  over  the  raw  material,  and  how  to  market 
it  to  better  advantage. 

Everything  that  touches  our  lives,  every  enterprise 
in  which  we  engage,  whether  we  live  in  town  or  in  the  coun- 
try, sooner  or  later  goes  back  to  the  industry  which  sus- 
tains us.  The  one  petition  common  to  us  all,  rich  and  poor 
alike,  is  the  one  standing  first  in  our  Lord's  Prayer :  "Give 
us  this  day  our  daily  bread";  this  one  is  fundamental  to  all 
the  rest ;  on  it  they  depend ;  about  it  they  revolve. 

We  see  everywhere  about  us  the  successful  business  of 
today  studying  its  operations  to  render  them  more  efficient. 
It  must  do  so  to  survive.  The  degree  to  which  it  solves 
these  questions  largely  determines  the  measure  of  its  suc- 
cess. This  is  what  will  be  done  here.  The  various  enter- 
prises which  are  the  subjects  of  investigation  are  studied 
to  the  end  that  people  may  engage  in  them  with  less  dan- 
ger of  mistakes  or  failures;  that  they  may  be  more  pru- 
dently and  efficiently  conducted. 

We  all  commend  the  wisdom  of  providing  a  place  such 
as  this,  where  the  laws  of  commerce,  finance,  economics, 
and  business  methods  can  be  studied  and  applied  to  various 
great  enterprises  such  as  railways  and  banking,  in  which 
we  are  all  interested.  Far  better  learn  about  them  here 
than  in  the  old  expensive  school  of  experience. 

We  have  more  railway  mileage  than  any  other  state  in 
the  Union,  but  one,  and  the  development  of  all  these  rail- 
ways has  much  to  do  with  the  leading  position  we  occupy. 
They  affect  directly  the  public  safety,  comfort,  and  business 
throughout  the  state,  and  we  look  to  their  officers,  those 
men  having  control  of  their  administration,  for  their  safe 
and  successful  operation. 

So  with  banks,  modern  business  is  impossible  without 
them.  They  extend  the  boundaries  of  our  operations  enor- 
mously and  open  up  avenues  of  trade  which  would  other- 
wise remain  closed.  They  operate  so  smoothly  and  quietly 
that  we  take  them  for  granted,  and  seldom  consider  how 
great  is  the  service  thev  render. 


28        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

Other  enterprises  there  are  as  worthy  of  mention  and 
investigation  in  a  department  of  this  kind  as  railways  and 
banks,  but  like  them  are  already  highly  organized  as  com- 
pared with  agriculture;  for  greatly  as  we  have  increased 
our  skill  in  its  art,  and  much  as  we  have  added  to  our 
knowledge  of  its  science,  we  have  till  now  largely  neglected 
the  development  of  its  business  side.  If  these  already 
highly  organized  enterprises  are  in  need  of  such  a  building 
as  this,  how  great  must  be  the  need  of  agriculture?  Not 
for  the  sake  of  an  invidious  comparison,  but  that  we  may 
the  better  judge  these  relative  needs  and  more  fully  realize 
the  scope  and  importance  of  this  work,  permit  me  to  call 
your  attention  to  the  following:  Illinois  has  about  two 
thousand  banks;  the  last  report  of  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission  estimates  that  we  have  less  than  one 
thousand  railway  officials;  while  according  to  our  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  Illinois  has  over  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  farms. 

The  farmer  on  each  one  has  charge  of  its  administra- 
tion. He  is  more  responsible  for  its  management  than  the 
railway  officer  is  for  the  management  of  the  railway,  or 
the  bank  director  for  the  bank.  Each  farm  has  its  advan- 
tages and  disadvantages,  particular  type  of  soil,  and  fitness 
for  this  or  that  branch  of  farming.  Each  is  a  factory,  if 
you  please,  engaged  in  transforming  the  sunsliine  and  rain 
and  elements  of  the  soil  into  the  loaf  for  tomorrow.  Each 
one  is  subject  to  classification  and  organization  according 
to  business  methods  and  economic  farm  management,  and 
each  is  ripe  for  investigation  by  sucli  a  department  as  tliis. 

Imagine  if  you  cfin  a  railway,  a  bank,  or  a  factory, 
trying  to  conduct  its  business  without  a  set  of  books,  with- 
out an  inventory  or  yearly  balance,  without  figuring  profit 
and  loss.  Yet  tliis  great  complex  business  of  agriculture 
knows  but  little  of  these  things;  it  is  trying  to  get  along 
without  them. 

Hut  few  of  those  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  far- 
mers know  what  their  overhead  charge  amounts  to,  or  the 
per  cent  of  dividend  their  investment  is  paying  them.    Pay- 


BUSINESS   PROBLEMS  OP  AGRICULTURE  29 

ing  satisfactory  dividends  is  a  problem  which  has  not  been 
simi)lified  by  a  tremendous  rise  in  land  values  and  labor 
costs.  But  few  figure  the  value  of  their  own  time  and 
labor,  or  the  cost  of  their  equipment  and  its  maintenance, 
the  expense  of  keeping  a  team  of  horses,  or  the  amount  of 
labor  they  do  in  a  year;  and  the  great  problems  of  buying 
and  selling  are  practicality  untouched;  so  on  ad  infinitum. 

The  American  farmer  has  had  a  tremendous  task  on 
his  hands,  and  has  won  for  himself  the  distinction  of  being 
the  most  productive  man  in  the  world  per  capita.  He  has 
had  no  opportunity  for  studying  these  things  before,  and 
therefore  could  not  be  expected  to  know  them;  but  they 
demand  his  attention  now.  Pressing  as  is  the  need  of  this 
work  we  have  not  heretofore  been  ready  to  take  up  the  sub- 
jects of  Agricultural  Economics  and  Farm  Management ; 
first,  because  we  did  not  know  enough  about  them.  The 
very  data  which  our  experiment  stations  and  colleges  have 
been  gathering  in  regard  to  the  science  of  agriculture  must 
necessarily  come  first,  for  of  such  is  the  foundation  on 
which  they  rest;  second,  the  realization  of  their  need  has 
not  been  sufficiently  general. 

The  prevailing  opinion  seems  to  be  that  the  young  man 
coming  over  here  to  take  a  course  in  the  science  of  agri- 
culture will  naturally  acquire  all  the  information  he  needs 
concerning  farm  management,  and  should  be  able  without 
further  instruction  to  select  for  his  own  use  that  informa- 
tion best  adapted  to  his  needs.  Such  a  plan  is  not  wise; 
that  this  may  more  fully  appear  let  us  consider  the  matter 
a  little  further. 

In  its  beginnings  agriculture  was  as  simple  as  the 
primitive  men  who  practiced  it;  nothing  could  be  more  so. 
In  its  higher  development  nothing  could  bo  more  complex. 
Like  a  great  body  attracting  those  smaller  about  it,  so 
agriculture  draws  unto  itself  the  various  sciences,  and  ren- 
ders them  subservient  to  its  purposes.  Enter  any  depart- 
ment in  the  college — soil,  agronom3\  horticulture,  or  any 
other  you  may  choose  (there  are  quite  a  number  of  them 
now  and  they  will  continue  to  increase) — they  will  trans- 


30        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

port  you  to  the  outer  confines  of  knowledge  on  that  particu- 
lar subject;  for  that  is  their  specialty,  and  in  the  very  na- 
ture of  things  they  become  specialists  and  see  each  and 
every  farm  problem  through  their  particular  shade  of  spec- 
tacles. To  that  extent  they  lose  their  perspective  of  the 
whole.  Investigators  at  our  experiment  stations  patiently 
carry  on  their  search,  the  results  of  which  are  disseminated 
in  the  class  room.  The  amount  and  diversity  of  this  infor- 
mation is  astonishing.  You  surely  would  not  expect  the 
young  student  to  catalogue  and  arrange  all  this  for  him- 
self. 

The  State  of  Illinois  has  invested  freely  in  agricultural 
education  and  has  never  found  a  better  investment ;  but  if 
it  is  to  reap  the  full  measure  of  its  reward,  the  information 
we  have  acquired  must  be  made  to  flow  back  from  our 
college  and  experiment  stations  through  the  channels  of 
agricultural  economics  and  business  management,  into 
practical  operation  on  the  farms.  The  place  to  begin  is 
here.  Start  now,  and  it  will  take  a  generation  to  get  it  on 
the  farms;  for  this  is  new  wine  and  new  wine  must  have 
new  bottles.  We  all  think  too  much  of  the  old  bottles  in 
this  case  to  want  to  risk  bursting  them ;  and  besides,  many 
of  their  stoppers  are  in  pretty  tight  when  you  approach 
them  on  these  subjects. 

There  is  need,  great  need,  of  a  department  wherein 
the  many  facts  and  figures  of  the  different  branches  of 
agriculture  can  be  brought  together,  combined  and  put 
into  operation  to  the  best  advantage.  Certain  of  them  have 
strong  natural  afifinities  and  are  best  adapted  to  particular 
conditions,  just  as  every  farm  lias  peculiarities  of  topogra- 
phy, fertility,  and  accessibility  to  market.  The  questions 
pertaining  to  these  subjects  are  without  number.  Every 
new  invention  or  discovery  affects  them. 

This  department  is  destined  to  become  one  into  which 
all  the  fruits  from  the  cornucopias  of  the  others  are 
emptied,  sorted  out  and  packed  ready  for  distribution. 
Every  student  of  agriculture  will  deem  it  essential  to  his 
course.    I  do  not  expect  it  to  solve  every  problem  he  will 


BUSINESS   PROBLEMS   OF  AGRICULTURE  31 

encounter  when  he  gets  back  on  the  farm,  but  it  will  teach 
him  to  keep  a  record,  to  strike  a  balance,  to  take  an  inven- 
tory, to  look  for  waste,  to  figure  profit  and  loss,  and  thus 
to  solve  his  own  problems  when  he  meets  them.  He  will 
choose  more  wisely  what  he  devotes  himself  and  his  farm 
to  producing.  It  will  make  him  more  efficient  and  his  farm 
more  productive. 

The  last  census  shows  an  increase  of  twenty  per  cent 
in  our  population,  and  no  increase  to  speak  of  in  our  farms. 
We  are  feeding  this  increase  almost  entirely  out  of  the 
surplus  which  we  formerly  had  for  export.  The  present 
decade  will  see  our  transition  from  an  exporter  to  an  im- 
porter of  foodstuffs — we,  who  only  yesterday,  were  the 
granary  of  the  world.    It  is  hard  to  believe. 

Within  the  last  few  days  you  have  seen  the  tariff  com- 
ing off  our  agricultural  products  in  an  effort  to  reduce  the 
cost  of  living.  So  long  as  we  had  a  big  surplus  this  tariff 
reminded  me  of  a  tax  on  coals  brought  to  Newcastle.  It 
has  this  to  recommend  it,  however ;  if  it  has  not  afforded  us 
protection  we  will  not  miss  it  when  it  is  gone.  As  our 
surplus  disappears  the  farmer  will  be  placed  in  competition 
with  the  cheap  land  and  cheaper  labor  of  other  countries. 
These  are  some  of  the  facts  bearing  on  our  present  agricul- 
tural situation. 

There  was  a  time,  and  not  long  ago,  when  a  man  could 
be  a  failure  on  the  farm  from  a  business  standpoint,  and 
yet  continue  in  business.  He  could  farm  so  as  to  deplete 
the  fertility  of  his  soil  and  then  move  to  a  fresh  farm. 
There  was  always  new  land  to  bring  under  the  plow,  and 
this  took  away  the  fear  of  competition.  Land  was  so 
abundant  and  cheap  that  people  were  spoken  of  as  being 
"land  poor."  This  was  a  common  complaint,  but  these 
days  are  passed  and  gone.  Our  farms  are  now  occupied. 
Land  is  no  longer  cheap.  Competition  is  sharpening  its 
spurs  for  the  farmer  and  he  must  hence  forth  stand  up 
and  be  measured  by  the  rule  of  modern  business  efficiency. 
He  must  be  able  to  cope  with  these  changed  conditions; 
if  he  falls  short  he  will  have  to  give  way  to  some  one 
more  capable.     No  matter  who   farms  it  the  land  will 


32        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

belong  to  the  man  who  can  manage  it  profitably.  Therein 
lies  a  danger  of  his  being  exploited  as  farmers  have  been 
in  some  countries,  even  in  the  southern  part  of  our  own 
country;  if  not  exploited,  he  must  descend  from  owner 
to  tenant,  or  from  tenant  to  hired  man. 

In  the  face  of  these  conditions  it  vrould  be  well  to 
profit  by  the  experience  of  those  older  agricultural  coun- 
tries. From  the  French  w^e  can  learn  a  great  lesson  in 
economy ;  from  the  Germans,  intensive  methods  and  rural 
credits;  from  the  Scotch,  thrift;  from  the  Danes,  the  value 
of  co-operation ;  from  them  all,  much  about  marketing.  But 
in  some  of  these  countries  the  acre,  so  to  speak,  has  become 
the  standard;  in  our  own  may  it  ever  remain  the  man! 
For  man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone,  and  with  no  country 
I  have  ever  seen  would  I  exchange  our  standard  and  ideals 
of  rural  life.  To  preserve  these  and  afford  the  opportunity 
for  their  continued  development  and  elevation  is  our  chief 
concern.  All  other  agricultural  problems  are  of  minor 
importance.  Accomplish  this,  and  you  accomplish  all ;  for 
whether  or  not  the  answers  to  the  questions  which  now  per- 
plex us  are  difficult,  depends  most  largely  and  directly 
upon  the  kind  of  men  who  undertake  to  solve  them. 

Show  me  a  community  where  the  problems  of  the 
country  church,  the  country  school,  or  country  road  have 
become  acute,  and  I  will  show  you  a  community  where  the 
short-term  tenant  farmer  predominates,  and  which  is 
largely  made  up  of  agricultural  "stand-patters"  instead  of 
"progressives."  The  best  farm  community  exists  where 
the  men  who  own  the  farms  live  on  and  operate  tliem. 
There  you  find  the  sort  of  farm  homes  tliat  constitute  the 
backbone  of  our  country.  They  are  the  cradle  of  its  best 
citizonsliip.  There  is  something  about  tlieir  environment 
tliat  gives  tlicm  a  higli  educational  value,  and  develops 
habits  of  industry,  economy,  patience,  and  perseverance — 
traits  of  rliaracter  which  are  inestimable. 

It  is  this  life  we  would  preserve  in  its  highest  and  best. 
We  are  now  lifting  the  latch  on  the  door  to  its  new  oppor- 
tunity.   Tlie  way  lies  here. 


SECOND  SESSION 

BUSINESS  ADMINISTRATION  IN  ITS  RELATION  TO 
PUBLIC  AND  PRIVATE  WELFARE 


What  a  Budget  May  Mean  to  the  Administration 

Frederick  A.  Cleveland 
Chairman  of  the  Commission  on  Economy  and  Efficiency 

Before  going  into  this  subject  I  wish  to  emphasize  the 
fact  that  the  budget,  as  the  term  is  understood  where  real 
budgets  are  used  is  essentially  an  executive  document,  and 
as  such  is  to  be  clearly  distinguished  from  an  act  of  appro- 
priation. It  is  to  the  Government  what  the  annual  report 
of  a  president  of  a  board  is  to  a  private  corporation. 

The  hudget  an  executive  document. — The  primary  pur- 
pose of  a  budget  is  to  provide  a  means  whereby  the  officers 
who  are  in  everyday  contact  with  the  business  may  give 
information  to  other  officers  who  do  not  have  everyday 
contact,  but  who  meet  periodically  as  a  body  for  the  pur- 
pose of  considering  and  deciding  questions  of  policy.  In 
government  it  is  the  evolutionary  product  of  a  democratic 
regime  which  has  insisted  on  : 

Accountability  for  funds  granted,  and  a  declaration  of 
purpose  before  further  grants  are  made. — In  other  words, 
it  is  a  statement  and  declaration  by  means  of  which  respon- 
sibility for  infidelity,  inefficiency,  and  waste  may  be  located. 
Responsibility  is  to  the  electorate.  Accountability  is  to  be 
enforced  through  critical  review  by  the  legislature.  The 
declaration  of  purpose  must  be  made  to  a  group  of  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people  who  hold  the  purse  strings.  Re- 
sponsibility to  the  electorate  can  be  protected  and  en- 
forced only  through  knowledge  of  facts,  and  the  Executive 
is  called  upon  to  furnish  them.  Knowledge  of  facts  can 
be  obtained  by  the  Executive  only  through  records  and  re- 
ports, and  for  liis  own  protection  he  must  know  that  these 
are  complete,  accurate,  and  up-to-date.  It  is  essential  to 
a  declaration  of  purpose  that  plans  must  be  made  and  esti- 
mates of  cost  must  be  submitted.  Through  a  budget  the 
Executive  may  also  be  made  responsible  for  recommending 
how  revenues  are  to  be  raised.     In  any  event,  he  must 

35 


36        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

determine  that  his  plans  fall  within  the  range  of  possibility 
of  accomplishment.  All  of  these  processes  or  steps  are 
incidental  or  collateral  to  the  preparation  and  submission 
of  a  budget. 

Collateral  steps  to  a  budget  procedure. — In  this  coun- 
try we  have  had  all  of  the  incidental  or  collateral  steps  to 
a  budget  procedure,  but  we  have  never  had  a  budget,  i.  e.,  in 
the  sense  that  the  term  is  used  abroad.  We  have  never  had 
a  definite  statement  of  affairs  and  a  definite  statement  of 
executive  proposals  submitted  by  the  responsible  head  of 
the  administration  in  budget  form.  Each  of  the  collateral 
processes  or  steps  has  at  one  time  or  another,  or  in  one 
place  or  another,  been  called  a  "budget."  Departmental 
summaries  of  estimates  prepared  by  some  irresponsible 
administrative  officer  or  board ;  bills  of  appropriation  pre- 
pared by  committees  of  the  legislative  branch ;  acts  of  ap- 
propriation by  the  legislative  branch,  unassociated  with 
revenue  measures ;  revenue  measures  combined  with  acts  of 
appropriation — these  are  among  the  collateral  steps  of  a 
budget  procedure,  each  of  which  in  this  country  has  been 
given  the  name  of  "budget."  From  all  of  these  procedures, 
however,  the  real  and  only  effective  means  that  has  ever 
been  devised  by  democracy  for  locating  and  enforcing  re- 
sponsibility— the  budget  itself — has  been  lacking. 

Our  Government  irre^ponsihle. — And  so  in  this  coun- 
try we  have  not  had  responsible  government.  We  have 
tried  all  the  methods  that  have  been  worked  out  in  coun- 
tries where  a  budget  practice  obtains  except  tlie  budget 
itself.  In  our  effort  to  locate  and  enforce  responsibility 
we  have  provided  for  the  separation  of  governing  powers ; 
for  the  centralization  of  executive  power  in  a  single  elec- 
tive officer;  for  the  centralization  of  executive  power  by 
making  practically  every  head  of  department  elective;  for 
the  consolidation  of  both  legislative  and  executive  powers 
that  theretofore  had  been  separated;  for  the  utilization  of 
agencies  outside  and  independent  of  both  of  these  and  in 
8ome  instances  outside  of  the  Government  itself — we  have 
done  everything  to  locate  and  enforce  responsibility  except 


MEANING  OF  A  BUDGET  TO  THE  ADMINISTRATION  37 

to  adopt  the  very  simple  and  practical  expedient  of  requir- 
ing that  the  legally  responsible  head  of  the  administration 
shall  submit  each  year  a  statement  which  shall  be  used  by 
the  legislative  branch  as  a  means  whereby  the  administra- 
tion may  be  actually  held  responsible  for  rendering  a  satis- 
factory account  and  for  judgment  in  the  preparation  and 
submission  of  plans  for  future  expenditure — a  basis  for 
considering  whether  or  not  the  Executive  is  entitled  to 
confidence  and  further  deserves  the  support  which  is  asked 
for  by  him. 

Constitutional  prescriptions  violated. — In  this  rela- 
tion it  may  be  helpful  to  reflect  a  moment  on  the  fact 
that  the  reason  for  the  absence  of  the  budget  system  in  this 
country  is  not  to  be  found  in  our  fundamental  law.  Each 
of  the  elements  essential  to  a  budget  has  been  definitely 
provided  for  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
Taken  together,  the  mandatory  provisions  of  the  Constitu- 
tion on  the  subject  will  almost  in  exact  words  define  a 
budget.  The  Constitution  prescribes  the  means  for  enforc- 
ing accountability  by  requiring  that  "a  regular  statement 
and  account  of  receipts  and  expenditures  of  all  public 
money  shall  be  published  from  time  to  time" ;  it  prescribes 
the  means  whereby  responsibility  for  judgment  in  executive 
planning  may  be  enforced,  by  requiring  that  the  President 
"shall  from  time  to  time  give  to  Congress  information  on 
the  state  of  the  Union  and  recommend  to  their  considera- 
tion such  measures  as  he  shall  deem  necessary  and  expedi- 
ent." Lest  the  powers  of  the  President  to  obtain  the  infor- 
mation needed  might  be  impaired,  the  Constitution  gives 
to  him  the  power  to  "require  the  opinion  in  writing  of  each 
executive  officer  in  each  of  the  executive  departments  re- 
lating to  the  duties  of  their  respective  offices."  Thus 
responsibility  for  the  preparation  and  submission  of  a  bud- 
get is  definitely  located,  and  the  Chief  Executive  is  given 
the  power  by  means  of  which  he  can  enforce  this  upon  his 
subordinates.  The  power  of  the  President  as  the  responsi- 
ble head  of  the  administration,  to  obtain  the  information 
necessary,  is  placed  beyond  the  control  of  Congress,  as  is 


65232 


38        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

also  his  duty  to  submit  to  the  Congress  and  the  country- 
such  information  with  such  recommendations  as  by  him 
may  be  thought  "necessary  and  expedient."  He  has  been 
given  all  the  powers  of  a  Prime  Minister;  he  has  the 
powers  of  a  real  Chief  Executive  instead  of  a  nominal  one, 
both  in  administration  and  in  budget  making.  And  the 
first  acts  of  Congress,  following  the  British  precedent, 
evidently  contemplated  that  we  would  have  in  this  country 
a  budget  which  would  be  prepared  and  submitted  by  the 
executive  branch.  Notwithstanding  this  fact,  a  budget  was 
never  prepared  and  submitted  until  the  last  days  of  the 
last  session  of  Congress  and  then  as  a  belated  product  of  a 
retiring  Executive. 

Why  we  have  not  had  a  budget. — Why  have  we  not  had 
a  budget?  There  is  no  charter  reason  for  not  following  the 
British  precedent.  The  broad  theory  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  and  of  the  Constitution  of  Great  Britain 
is  identical.  Both  assume  that  the  Government  as  a 
corporation  holds  the  properties  and  administers  the  public 
funds  as  trustee;  both  assume  that  the  officers  of  govern- 
ment are  merely  agents  or  public  servants,  without  any 
rights  of  their  own  that  are  incompatible  with  service — 
that  they  are  responsible  to  the  electorate  for  serving  the 
public  with  fidelity,  for  developing  efficiency  in  the 
organization,  and  for  giving  to  the  people  the  best  possible 
service  at  the  lowest  possible  cost. 

The  essential  differences  between  the  English  and 
American  Constitutions  are  to  be  found  in  two  features  of 
organization : 

1.  In  England  there  is  a  divided  Chief  Executive, 
whereas  in  tlie  United  States  all  executive  power 

is  vested  in  the  President. 

2.  In  England  the  Prime  Minister,  as  the  responsible 
head  of  tlie  adininistrntion,  has  an  indefinite 
tenure  subject  to  recall  by  the  King  or  by  the 
House  of  Commons,  while  in  the  United  States 
the  President  has  a  fixed  tenure,  and  succession 
is  made  to  depend  on  popular  vote. 


'to* 


MEANING  OP  A  BUDGET  TO  THE  ADMINISTRATION  39 

Our  system  well  adapted  to  executive  leadership. — In 
these  differences,  however,  no  reason  is  found  for  not  hav- 
ing a  budget.  The  fact  that  we  have  a  single  executive 
gives  to  the  President  greater  power  as  a  leader  and,  there- 
fore, greater  reason  for  employing  the  means  necessary 
to  becoming  eflScient.  In  his  power  of  appeal  to  the  people 
he  has  been  given  a  great  tactical  advantage  over  Mem- 
bers of  Congress.  He  is  the  one  person  regarded  as  repre- 
senting the  dignity  and  power  of  the  Nation ;  he  is  the  one 
person  who  can  claim  the  attention  of  every  man,  woman, 
and  child ;  when  he  speaks,  the  President  is  heard  by  every 
citizen  elector.  The  fact  that  the  President  has  a  fixed 
tenure  still  further  fortifies  him  for  leadership.  Under 
such  circumstances  a  great  constructive  leader  may  under- 
take measures  that  he  would  not  dare  to  propose  if  he  were 
subject  to  recall  by  the  legislative  branch.  If  his  budget 
proposals  are  denied  by  Congress,  then  he  may  carry  on  a 
campaign  of  education  and  force  the  members  of  the  lower 
house  and  at  least  one-third  of  the  Senate  to  stand  for 
re-election  before  he  must  again  go  before  the  country  for 
electoral  support.  If  during  his  tenure  he  can  demonstrate 
that  he  is  right,  the  country  has  the  advantage  of  his  con- 
structive effort  and  will  support  the  policies  which  he 
represents.  At  the  same  time  if  he  is  wrong  the  constitu- 
tional barriers  against  usurpation  of  power  are  adequate 
to  prevent  the  President  doing  anything  for  which  he  can- 
not obtain  a  majority  following. 

Reasoning  from  British  analogy. — Those  who  would 
argue  against  the  budget  as  an  executive  document  may 
urge  that  the  primary  reason  for  a  budget  in  England 
arose  from  the  difficulty  experienced  in  dealing  with  a 
hereditary  ruling  class — a  class  which  has  obtained  its 
status  by  conquest.  This  may  be  admitted.  There,  a 
hereditary  class  having  been  incorporated  into  both  the 
legislative  and  executive  branches  of  tlie  Government,  the 
most  difficult  problem  that  the  Briton  had  to  solve  was  to 
provide  tlie  means  for  making  Government  responsive  with- 
out frequent  appeal  to  revolution.     The  organic  method 


40        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

of  solving  his  problem  was  to  divide  the  personnel  of  both 
branches  and  enforce  responsibility  through  the  non- 
hereditary  or  elected  official  class.  The  means  of  enforc- 
ing responsibility  on  the  hereditary  class  was  to  give  to  the 
elected  personnel  of  the  legislature,  who  had  a  limited  ten- 
ure, control  over  the  purse  and  to  make  the  Prime  Minister 
as  the  responsible  head  of  the  administration  subject  to 
recall  either  by  the  King  or  by  the  House  of  Commons. 

But  the  Briton  went  one  step  further.  Since  the 
elected  personnel  of  his  Government  was  to  be  held  respon- 
sible to  the  people,  a  procedure  was  also  devised  for  clearly 
defining  the  issues  to  be  discussed.  And  with  this  in  view 
the  Prime  Minister  was  compelled  each  year  to  submit  a 
budget.  If  the  Commons  did  not  controvert  the  proposals 
of  the  Executive,  then  no  issue  could  be  raised  until  the 
next  parliamentary  election.  But,  if  the  Commons  refused 
to  accept  any  material  part  of  the  Government's  program 
as  submitted  then  the  issue  would  be  clear.  The  result  was 
to  develop  in  Parliament  a  pro-administration  and  an  oppo- 
sition party.  And  since  the  Executive  was  without  a  fixed 
tenure,  if  the  opposition  constituted  a  majority  of  the 
Commons  then  either  the  Prime  Minister  must  resign  or 
the  King  could  prorogue  the  Parliament  and  force  the 
issue  before  the  country. 

The  budget  a  procedure  for  defining  'political  issues. — 
The  budget  therefore  is  to  the  political  court  of  first  in- 
stance (the  legislature)  and  of  final  appeal  (the  electorate) 
what  established  judicial  procedure  is  to  courts  of  law  and 
equity.  That  is,  a  budget  is  an  orderly  means  whereby 
issues  between  contesting  parties  may  be  defined,  and  with 
reference  to  which  facts  may  be  adduced  and  arguments 
made  before  decision  is  asked  for  at  the  liands  of  those  who 
are  responsible  for  the  expression  of  public  opinion  on 
matters  of  government. 

Historic  reasons  for  not  hariug  budget  procedure. — 
Our  reason  for  not  having  developed  a  procedure  for  clearly 
defining  political  issues  in  this  country  must  be  found  in 
historic  facts  rather  than  institutional  principles.     The 


MEANING  OF  A  BUDGET  TO  THE  ADMINISTRATION  41 

first  historic  fact  that  confronts  us  is  an  assumption  on  our 
part  that  our  Constitution  is  so  far  different  from  that  of 
European  countries  that  officers  will  necessarily  be  made 
responsive  to  public  will  without  a  legal  procedure  by 
means  of  which  political  issues  may  be  defined.  We  did 
away  with  the  hereditary  class  in  both  branches  of  the 
Government,  we  made  our  Prime  Minister  (the  President) 
elective — not  by  the  more  popular  house  of  the  legisla- 
ture but  by  an  independent  electoral  college;  we  gave  to 
officers  of  both  branches  a  fixed  tenure  which  would  auto- 
matically return  them  to  the  people.  This  constitutionaf 
provision  was  deemed  all  sufficient. 

A  second  historic  fact  also  confronts  us,  namely,  that 
the  dominant  attitude  toward  the  Government  was  that  it 
should  be  controlled  by  ideals  of  laissez  faire.  Since  the 
Government  was  to  do  notliing  except  to  look  after  matters 
of  diplomacy,  provide  for  national  defense,  operate  a  few 
general  utilities  such  as  the  post  office,  and  raise  revenues, 
there  was  no  administrative  policy  at  stake.  The  matters 
of  policy  which  engaged  popular  attention  had  little  to  do 
with  expenditures.  The  questions  to  be  settled  were  those 
of  constitutional  interpretation,  taxation,  the  disposition  of 
the  public  domain  and  the  like.  And,  so  long  as  laissez 
faire  remained  the  dominant  theory  in  political  discussion. 
Congress  had  the  advantage.  Congress  held  the  purse 
strings.  Since  we  were  without  executive  leadership,  Con- 
gress came  to  decide  all  questions  as  an  incident  to  mak- 
ing appropriations.  It  decided  what  should  be  done ;  what 
organization  and  equipment  would  be  provided;  what 
amount  of  funds  would  be  voted  to  the  Executive;  how 
many  persons  could  be  employed  and  at  what  salaries;  what 
could  be  bought ;  matters  of  promotion  and  demotion ;  con- 
tractual relations — practically  every  subject  of  administra- 
tive discretion  came  to  be  hedged  about  with  legal  condi- 
tions or  personal  understandings,  so  that  the  legislative 
<!ommittee  came  to  be  everything  and  the  administrative 
officer  nothing. 


42         COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

The  further  result  has  been  gross  inefficiency  in  admin- 
istration, and  gross  waste  of  public  revenues,  and  with 
public  opinion  dormant  on  matters  of  administration  it  was 
only  natural  that  the  legislative  branch  would  see  to  it  that 
the  President  as  the  head  of  the  executive  branch  was  not 
provided  with  the  means  whereby  his  position  of  tactical 
advantage  for  leadership  might  be  utilized.  At  least  Con- 
gress is  not  to  be  harshly  criticized  because  it  did  not  take 
the  initiative  and  provide  the  means  to  the  Executive 
whereby  he  would  be  able  to  avail  himself  of  his  advantage. 

Furthermore,  so  long  as  the  need  was  not  felt  for  execu- 
tive leadership.  Congress  has  had  a  constitutional  advan- 
tage as  a  matter  of  organization.  The  Congress  is  a  numer- 
ous body ;  the  President  is  a  single  individual ;  Congress  in 
its  own  personnel  had  the  means  of  effecting  a  powerful 
organization  for  purposes  of  inquiry  and  investigation;  the 
President  did  not.  What  happened  was  just  what  under 
the  circumstances  might  be  expected;  Congress  having 
organized  itself  into  many  committees  for  the  purpose  of 
reviewing  the  acts  of  the  administration  and  of  consider- 
ing questions  of  policy,  it  gradually  took  over  to  itself 
control  over  the  subordinates  of  the  President.  For  pur- 
poses of  review  it  called  not  on  the  responsible  head  of  the 
administration  for  an  accounting  and  for  a  statement  of 
proposals  which  might  be  considered  necessary  for  deter- 
mining what  supplies  should  be  granted  or  what  organiza- 
tion and  equipment  should  be  made  available,  but  it  called 
on  each  of  the  hundreds  of  subordinates  of  tlie  President 
to  meet  with  their  committees.  While  Congress  provided 
its  committees  with  the  means  for  obtaining  from  executive 
subordinates  the  information  needed  to  guide  them  in  de- 
termining their  own  action  and  to  limiting  the  use  of 
executive  discretion,  they  gave  to  the  Executive  no  effective 
means  which  he  might  use  to  keep  in  touch  with  what  was 
going  on  or  to  obtain  information  about  details  necessary 
to  constructive  executive  leadership.  The  President  sat  by 
and  said  nothing  while  this  development  was  going  on; 
and  instead  of  becoming  the  effective  head  of  the  adminis- 


MEANING  OF  A  BUDGET  TO  THE  ADMINISTRATION  43 

tration  largely  through  the  exercise  of  his  own  appointing 
power  and  his  veto,  he  came  to  be  the  head  of  an  outside 
non-governmental  agency  that  had  been  organized  for  the 
purpose  of  controlling  the  electorate — the  constitutional 
agency  to  which  both  he  and  Congress  were  made  responsi- 
ble. By  so  doing  efficiency  in  the  administration  was 
made  impossible,  because  the  conditions  were  not  present 
for  the  development  of  expertness  in  the  handling  of 
details  of  business,  and  there  grew  up  all  the  elements  of 
waste  incident  to  an  unco-ordinated,  warring,  demoralized 
bureaucracy  which  was  used  as  a  buffer  between  contending 
partisan  and  personal  forces. 

Conditions  present  which  demand  executive  leadership. 
— Times  have  changed.  When  the  inheritance  of  the  people, 
the  public  lands,  had  been  given  away ;  when  laissez  favre 
had  caused  the  Government  to  stand  by  for  such  time  that 
our  national  resources  had  become  almost  completely  re- 
duced to  private  ownership;  when,  through  processes  of 
legal  incorporation,  aggregations  of  capital  in  the  hands 
of  the  few  had  gained  control  both  over  production  and  the 
facilities  for  distribution;  when  population  had  become 
massed  in  centers  of  industry — a  new  thouglit  was  born, 
new  not  to  the  Old  World  but  to  America.  The  doctrine 
of  laissez  faire  was  forgotten.  The  people  turned  to  the 
Government  as  the  only  agency  able  to  protect  them,  whose 
purpose  was  to  promote  the  general  welfare.  Increased 
demands  were  made  on  the  Government  to  do  something. 
In  response  to  demands  made  througli  representatives, 
one  new  activity  after  another  sprung  into  life.  Bureau 
organizations  and  field  services  were  multiplied;  public 
expenditures  increased  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Even  with 
a  high  protective  tariff  and  in  times  of  great  trade  activity, 
with  fast  increasing  revenues,  the  expenditures  came  to 
surpass  the  national  income  and  to  threaten  a  Treasury 
deficit.  Accompanying  the  increased  demand  for  expendi- 
ture were  also  insistent  demands  for  a  readjustment  of 
revenues — a  readjustment  through  which  the  cost  of  public 
service  might  be  equated  without  fostering  monopoly.    On 


44         COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

the  one  hand,  the  Government  was  confronted  with  a  past 
policy  of  social  injustice  to  be  corrected;  on  the  other,  with 
the  need  to  reduce  the  enormous  waste  of  public  funds. 

The  demand  of  the  time  is  a  demand  for  a  leader  who 
will  also  be  an  Executive — a  demand  for  a  master  mind 
which  can  do  for  citizenship  through  the  Government  what 
master  minds  have  done  for  shareholders  through  private 
enterprise.  In  the  spirit  of  discontent  the  people  have 
been  seeking  a  President  who  will  realize  this  desire — a 
President  who  will  undertake  to  direct  and  control  the  gov- 
ernmental activities,  to  the  cost  of  which  citizens  are  con- 
tributing $1,000,000,000  a  year  with  a  single  purpose — 
that  of  giving  to  the  people  efficient  service  and  of  mak- 
ing every  dollar  give  a  good  account  of  itself. 

Under  these  circumstances  there  has  been  an  increas- 
ing demand  for  a  budget  system,  similar  to  that  which  has 
proved  so  effective  in  other  countries.  But  in  the  promul- 
gation of  such  a  system  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  official 
motive  will  be  quite  different  from  what  it  has  been  abroad. 
There  a  budget  procedure  was  forced  on  an  irresponsible 
hereditary  Executive;  here  in  America  it  will  come  as  a 
means  of  locating  responsibility  as  between  different 
branches  of  an  elected  personnel.  Tliere  it  has  been  devel- 
oped as  an  instrument  of  executive  leadership  in  the  hands 
of  a  Prime  Minister;  here  it  would  serve  an  independently 
elected  Executive  by  providing  the  means  whereby  he  may 
become  a  leader  in  the  constructive  reforms  necessary  to 
make  the  Government  an  effective  instrument  of  welfare 
instead  of  an  instrument  of  special  privilege. 

Advantages  of  a  budget  system  to  the  administration. 
— It  is  not  for  us  at  this  time  to  go  into  the  many  practices 
wliicli  have  made  for  inefficiency  and  waste  in  our  Govern- 
ment under  a  system  of  congressional  management,  but 
ratlier  to  consider  more  concretely  wliat  are  some  of  the 
advantages  tliat  a  budget  may  hold  out  to  the  Executive 
and  to  those  under  him  who  are  responsible  under  the 
Constitution  for  managing  the  details  of  public  business. 


MEANING  OF  A  BUDGET  TO  THE  ADMINISTRATION  45 

A  budget  requires  executive  leadership. — What  we 
have  lacked  in  this  country  is  responsible  leadership.  We 
have  been  a  nation  of  irresponsible  parties  as  well  as  of 
irresponsible  government.  It  has  been  frequently  said 
that  our  political  platforms  have  been  made  to  "run  on" 
and  not  to  "stand  on."  A  budget  requires  that  the  Chief 
Executive  shall  each  year  make  a  statement  with  respect 
to  the  past  performances  and  tell  the  country  what  he 
proposes  to  "stand  on"  when  he  asks  for  further  supplies. 
This  is  the  alternative  to  placing  the  initiative  in  the 
hands  of  irresponsible  legislative  subordinates  and  decision 
as  to  what  support  shall  be  given  in  the  hands  of  irrespon- 
sible legislative  committees. 

A  budget  necessitates  executive  protection  against 
criticism. — Responsible  leadership  carries  with  it  responsi- 
bility for  protection  against  criticism.  In  our  political 
system  the  legislative  body  is  expected  to  give  support  to 
proper  requests  and  to  refuse  support  for  purposes  which 
will  not  be  approved  by  the  electorate.  This  is  the  respon- 
sibility of  the  legislator.  He  is  not  called  on  to  initiate 
proposals  for  support.  In  an  institution  where  the  legis- 
lative branch  must  assume  responsibility  for  looking  criti- 
cally into  the  acts  of  the  executive  branch  the  necessity  for 
protection  of  the  Executive  against  criticism  becomes  im- 
perative. When  the  Executive  assumes  responsibility  for 
leadership  he  must  obtain  the  support  of  the  majority  of 
the  legislature;  under  such  circumstances  opposition  to 
executive  leadership  becomes  well  organized,  and  the  only 
protection  which  an  Executive  can  confidently  hope  for 
is  to  be  found  in  his  ability  to  obtain  first  knowledge  of 
conditions — in  providing  himself  with  the  means  whereby 
he  may  obtain  information  about  matters  of  current  busi- 
ness currently.  By  means  of  complete,  accurate,  and 
prompt  reports  he  may  keep  before  him  the  picture  of  what 
is  being  done  by.  subordinates;  he  may  have  this  weeks, 
perhaps  months,  and  even  a  year  before  the  acts  of  the 
administration  are  to  be  reviewed  by  the  legislative  com- 
mittees.    In  other  words,  the  only  protection  which  an 


46         COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

Executive  can  have  is  to  provide  himself  with  the  instru- 
ments of  precision  which  will  enable  him  to  have  exact 
knowledge  of  tendencies  toward  results  which  may  be  criti- 
cized. This  will  enable  him  intelligently  to  direct  and 
control,  to  correct  errors,  overcome  inefllciency  in  manage- 
ment and  personnel,  and  prevent  waste,  while  work  is 
in  progress  and  before  it  is  too  late  for  defects  to  be 
mended. 

A  budget  makes  a  general  system  of  accounting  and 
reporting  essential. — By  placing  responsibility  for  leader- 
ship on  the  Executive  the  most  natural  result  is  that  the 
Executive  will  see  to  it  that  he  is  provided  with  a  staff 
organization  and  with  the  funds  necessary  to  the  develop- 
ment and  installation  of  a  system  of  accounting  and  re- 
porting through  which  complete,  accurate,  and  up-to-date 
statements  of  fact  about  current  business  may  be  made 
available.  In  case  he  finds  that  he  is  not  so  provided,  he 
is  bound  to  make  an  issue  of  it  before  the  legislature  at  the 
time  funds  are  requested,  and,  if  support  is  not  granted, 
to  make  an  issue  before  the  people.  A  Chief  Executive 
must  insist  on  having  brought  to  his  desk  regularly  a  bal- 
ance sheet ;  he  must  insist  upon  having  laid  before  him  an 
operation  account  which  will  show  tendencies  and  relations 
of  income  and  outgo  from  month  to  month,  or,  if  need  be, 
from  week  to  week — statements  which  will  point  the  finger 
to  any  new  or  significant  developments  that  suggest  execu- 
tive inquiry;  he  must  insist  on  having  heads  of  depart- 
ments and  their  subordinates  provided  with  analyses  of 
cost,  and  reports  by  means  of  which  expenditures  will  be 
interpreted  in  terms  of  unit  standards  for  judgment  in 
order  tliat  inefficiency  and  waste  may  be  detected  and  cor- 
rected. Without  such  information  efficient  administration 
is  impossible;  without  it  executive  direction  and  control 
may  not  be  exercised;  neither  is  it  possible  for  the  Execu- 
tive to  submit  to  a  reviewing  body  a  statement  of  affairs 
with  estimates  of  cost  of  future  work  which  will  not  leave 
him  open  to  the  most  serious  criticism.  The  submission  of 
an  annual  budget,  wliich  must  carry  with  it  a  statement 


MEANING  OF  A  BUDGET  TO  THE  ADMINISTRATION  47 

of  affairs  as  well  as  estimates  for  future  work,  makes  it 
impossible  for  appropriation  bills  and  organic  legislation 
to  be  formulated  on  personal  and  local  issues;  it  would 
make  it  impossible  for  officers  to  put  through  what  are 
known  as  "pork  barrel,"  "logrolling,"  and  "rider"  meas- 
ures. Instead  of  every  question  being  decided  behind 
closed  doors  and  in  the  dark,  without  a  statement  of  issues, 
or  of  facts  supporting  them : 

1.  The  Executive  would  present  a  well-considered 

welfare  program,  fortified  by  a  brief  on  the 
facts. 

2.  The  opposition  in  the  legislature  in  its  critical 

examination  of  the  proposal  and  the  brief  sub- 
mitted,  through     the    accounts    and   reports, 
would   be  able   to   get  the   issues   before   the 
people. 
The  accounts  and  reports  developed  by  the  Executive  for 
his  own  information  and  protection  would  also  provide 
the  means   for  the  most  painstaking,  critical  review  of 
official  acts. 

Necessitates  the  development  of  an  efficient  personnel. 
• — Knowledge  of  what  is  being  done  is  not  sufficient.  To 
protect  himself  the  Executive  must  also  have  an  organiza- 
tion which  is  competent  to  perform  the  various  technical 
services  with  which  he  is  charged.  Given  executive  lead- 
ership and  responsible  government,  there  is  no  surer  way 
for  the  head  of  the  administration  to  obtain  condemnation 
for  subversion  of  the  public  trust  in  which  every  citizen 
is  interested  tlian  for  him  to  yield  to  the  importunities  of 
persons  who  are  asking  for  favors,  for  partisan  or  selfish 
reasons.  Given  executive  leadership,  a  civil  service  based 
on  merit  is  the  natural  result.  In  European  governments 
this  has  been  brought  about  by  leaving  the  permanent  or 
expert  personnel  under  the  hereditary  Executive,  and 
placing  the  political  personnel,  the  Cabinet,  under  the 
Prime  Minister.  Being  without  a  hereditary  Executive, 
we  have  attempted  to  develop  a  permanent  expert  staff 
organization  under  regulations  prescribed  by  a  permanent 


48        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

executive  staff  called  a  Civil  Service  Commission.  But, 
under  the  system  of  irresponsibility  such  as  has  obtained 
in  the  United  States  no  civil  service  law  could  be  framed 
which  would  be  proof  against  partisan  and  selfish  influ- 
ence. Officers  of  Government  have  obtained  prestige  by 
developing  what  is  known  as  "patronage,"  rather  than  by 
giving  attention  to  the  upbuilding  of  the  public  service  and 
rendering  it  efficient  in  the  performance  of  the  functions 
with  which  the  Executive  is  charged.  In  other  words, 
Government  has  been  regarded  as  an  opportunity  to  dis- 
pense personal  favors.  Although  the  Executive  may  be 
given  a  staff  or  permanent  commission  for  improving  the 
conditions  of  the  service,  all  the  forces  which  play  upon 
this  agency  are  for  the  purpose  of  reducing  the  executive 
staff  to  subservience  to  irresponsible  persons — of  making 
the  personnel  so  many  tools  in  the  hands  of  those  who  are 
seeking  to  use  the  Government  for  personal  ends.  Make 
the  Executive  responsible  for  every  act  and  proposal,  and 
enforce  upon  the  Government  the  necessity  for  using  the 
means  for  telling  the  story  of  inefficiency  to  the  people 
when  inefficiency  exists,  and  the  whole  situation  will  be 
changed.  Public  service  may  then  become  a  career  for 
those  who  wish  to  become  efficient  public  servants. 

Requires  adaptation  of  organization  to  ivorJc  to  he 
done. — When  responsibility  for  leadership  is  in  the  Execu- 
tive, he  is  interested  not  only  in  the  development  of  an 
efficient  personnel  but  also  in  an  organization  which  is 
adapted  to  the  development  of  expertness  in  management. 
Under  such  circumstances  it  would  be  inconceivable  that 
departments  would  be  organized  as  they  have  been  in  the 
Government  of  the  United  States.  If  tlie  Executive  is 
required  to  assume  responsibility  for  leadership,  what  rea- 
son could  be  given  by  the  Executive  to  the  public  for  dupli- 
cation and  overlapping  of  organization;  for  conflicts  in 
jurisdiction;  for  bringing  together  under  one  liead  wholly 
unrelated  services;  for  the  development  of  instituttons 
around  one  man  or  another  wlio  iniglit  liavo  influence  with 
a  particuhir  committee  in  Congress  in  utter  disregard  of 


MEANING  OF  A  BUDGET  TO  THE  ADMINISTRATION  49 

the  relations  of  tlie  man  or  of  the  institution  to  the  other 
functions  to  be  performed  bj  the  department  in  which  the 
new  service  is  to  be  located?  What  Executive  would  care 
to  assume  responsibility  for  advocacy  or  even  defense  of  an 
organization  in  the  executive  branch  of  the  Government 
which  makes  it  the  duty  of  the  Departments  of  the  Treas- 
ury, Agriculture,  Commerce,  Labor,  Interior,  State,  War, 
and  Navy  to  look  after  matters  of  public  health?  What 
Executive  would  assume  responsibility  for  not  calling  at- 
tention to  such  organic  law  as  makes  it  necessary  for  seven 
departments  and  one  independent  establishment  to  assume 
responsibility  for  providing  the  facilities  for  public  trans- 
portation? Given  responsible  government,  what  Execu- 
tive would  sit  by  and  not  raise  the  voice  of  protest  when  he 
finds  that  lie  has  placed  upon  him  such  incongruous  serv- 
ices as  are  grouped  together  in  the  Department  of  the 
Interior?  The  historic  reasons  for  such  an  organization 
may  be  accepted,  but  the  fact  that  no  Executive  can  develop 
expertness  in  the  administration  of  an  institution  whose 
kindred  activities  are  so  grouped  that  he  cannot  prevent 
the  conflicts,  the  duplications,  and  the  waste  which  at 
present  exist  would  be  a  compelling  reason  for  his  making 
an  issue.  And  in  raising  such  an  issue  he  would  go  with 
confidence  before  the  people,  expecting  that  he  would  re- 
ceive support,  Avhereas  he  would  as  certainly  know  that  a 
continuation  of  such  a  regime  could  bring  to  him  nothing 
but  condemnation. 

Conclusion. — In  a  word  it  may  be  said  that  a  budget 
means  the  placing  of  our  Executive  in  the  saddle  with  re- 
spect to  all  questions  that  are  executive  or  administrative 
in  character;  it  means  assumption  of  responsibility  for 
direction  and  control  by  the  Cliief  Executive;  it  means 
leadership  on  the  part  of  the  Chief  Executive  in  obtaining 
the  support  necessary  to  efiiciency  and  economy  in  man- 
agement; it  means  that  the  moneys  contributed  by  tlie 
people  will  be  effectivel}'^  used  for  welfare  ends;  it  means 
that  those  who  look  to  the  public  service  as  a  career  may 
be  surrounded  by  conditions  essential  to  the  development 


50        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

of  expertness  in  rendering  the  public  services  for  which  the 
Executive  is  to  be  held  responsible.  Although  a  budget  is 
only  a  procedure,  it  is  one  which  is  as  essential  to  the 
accomplishment  of  the  welfare  purposes  of  the  executive 
and  legislative  branches  of  Government  as  is  a  well- 
designed  judicial  procedure  to  the  accomplishment  of  the 
ends  of  justice  in  our  courts. 


Origin  and  Progeess  of  Business    Education    in   the 
United  States 

Edmund  J.  James 
President  of  the  University  of  Illinois 

We  are  gathered  here  in  honor  of  an  event  which 
marks  another  mile-stone  in  the  progress  of  a  great  educa- 
tional movement,  which  may  be  tersely  described  as  that 
for  the  university  education  of  business  men. 

I  do  not  know  that  I  can  make  any  better  contribution 
myself  in  the  exercises  of  this  occasion  than  to  take  a  brief 
view  of  the  origin  and  progress  of  this  movement. 

On  November  15,  1889,  William  H.  Rhawn,  President 
of  the  National  Bank  of  the  Republic  in  Philadelphia  and 
member  of  the  executive  council  of  tlie  American  Bankers' 
Association,  sent  out  a  communication  to  the  members  of 
the  Association  calling  attention  to  an  experiment  which 
was  being  tried  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  under 
the  name  of  the  Wharton  School  of  Finance  and  Economy. 
This  experiment  had  been  proceeding  for  some  six  or  eight 
years,  being  the  outgrowtli  of  an  endowment  offered  by  a 
distinguished  citizen  of  Philadelphia,  Mr.  Joseph  Wharton, 
in  order  to  enable  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  to  offer 
facilities  for  obtaining : 

1.  An  adequate  education  in  the  principles  underly- 
ing successful  civil  government. 

2.  A  training  suitable  for  those  who  intend  to  engage 
in  business  or  to  undertake  the  management  of  property. 

This  attempt  to  furnish  a  university  training  for  men 
who  intended  to  go  into  banking,  insurance,  merchandising, 
railway  administration,  etc.,  etc.,  including  all  branches 
of  business  and  commerce,  was  the  first  well-thought-out, 
clear,  definite  proposal  to  make  our  universities  the  center 
for  the  higher  training  of  business  men  in  the  same  sense 
in  whicli  the  historical  universities  have  been  the  centers 
for  the  training  of  physicians,  lawyers,  clergymen,  and 

51 


52        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

teachers.  At  any  rate  this  is  the  first  definite  proposal  of 
this  sort  concerning  the  enlargement  of  university  instruc- 
tion in  our  American  institutions  backed  by  the  provision 
of  some  means,  however  inadequate  they  prove  to  be,  for 
carrying  out  this  undertaking. 

The  University  of  Pennsylvania  at  that  time  consisted 
of  a  college  of  liberal  arts,  and  an  engineering  school,  with 
professional  schools  of  law,  dentistry  and  medicine,  in  a 
more  or  less  organic  connection  with  the  first  two  named 
departments.  The  college  which  determined  the  sentiment 
and  general  educational  policy  of  the  institution  was  an 
old-fashioned  college  of  liberal  arts ;  the  attention  of  which 
was  almost  exclusively  concentrated  upon  the  promotion 
of  the  classics  and  mathematics,  with  considerable  recogni- 
tion of  modern  subjects,  such  as  natural  science,  history, 
and  economics. 

The  members  of  the  faculty  were  men  whose  education 
had  been  primarily  classical ;  whose  instincts  were  against 
the  attempt  to  make  university  education  practical,  and 
who  looked  upon  all  such  attempts  as  this  proposed  by  Mr. 
Wharton  as  covert  attacks  upon  the  very  principle  of 
higher  education  itself.  They  were  not  familiar  with  the 
idea  underlying  Mr.  Wharton's  proposal.  They  were  op- 
posed to  the  whole  purpose  which  Mr.  Wharton  had  in 
mind,  thinking  that  the  future  business  man  might  acquire 
his  education  in  the  so-called  commercial  college,  or  he 
might  succeed  witliout  any  education  at  all,  or  at  most  he 
might  take  the  traditional  classical  training  as  a  means  of 
general  culture  and  go  into  business  without  any  special 
or  specific  training  whatever. 

It  was  to  this  sort  of  a  faculty  that  the  conduct  of  this 
experiment  was  entrusted.  It  is  no  wonder  that  in  its  in- 
ception it  was  a  failure.  Tlie  income  from  Mr.  Wharton's 
foundation  was  used  to  increase  salaries  of  men  already 
on  tlie  staff  who  gave  no  additional  instruction  whatever 
because  of  that  increase,  or  if  they  undertook  to  give  in- 
struction along  the  lines  of  Mr.  Wharton's  suggestion, 
they  were  attempting  to  teach  where  they  had  not  learned, 


PROGRESS  OF  BUSINESS  EDUCATION  53 

to  lead  where  they  had  never  followed,  to  act  where  they 
had  never  thought. 

The  first  result  can  therefore  only  be  described  as  a 
failure  which  led  to  a  reorganization  of  the  department 
which  had  been  named  the  Wharton  School  of  Finance  and 
Economy.  Beginning  with  the  autumn  of  1883  the  work 
was  put  on  an  entirely  different  foundation.  Albert  S. 
Bolles,  the  well-known  writer  on  financial  and  economic 
subjects,  had  been  added  to  the  faculty  in  the  previous 
year  for  the  purpose  of  planning  and  working  out  a  reor- 
ganization. Robert  Ellis  Thompson,  a  most  brilliant 
teacher  and  lecturer,  the  author  of  a  work  on  political 
economy  from  the  standpoint  of  Henry  Carey,  John  Bach 
McMaster,  the  American  historian,  and  myself  were  ap- 
pointed to  constitute,  as  it  were,  the  nucleus  or  backbone 
of  this  faculty  of  special  instructors  in  this  particular 
department. 

The  problem  was  by  no  means  an  easy  one.  Two  or 
three  of  us  had  a  deep,  abiding  interest  in  the  task  which 
had  been  appointed  to  us — that  of  working  out  a  university 
curriculum  which  it  would  be  worth  the  while* of  the  future 
business  man  to  complete  before  he  took  up  the  actual 
work  in  the  counting-house,  the  bank,  the  insurance  office, 
the  railway  office,  etc.,  in  the  same  sense  in  which  it  would 
be  worth  the  while  of  the  physician  to  take  the  medical 
course  or  the  lawyer  to  take  the  legal  course. 

There  were  no  models  which  we  could  follow.  There 
was  no  experience  from  which  we  could  profit.  The  funds 
themselves  were  very  inadequate  for  the  purpose  in  hand. 
The  other  departments  in  the  University  and  most  of  the 
other  members  of  the  faculty  were  bitterly  opposed  to  the 
whole  project.  And  even  if  they  did  not  actually  interfere 
to  prevent  the  progress  of  the  work,  they  stood  with  watch- 
ful, jealous  eyes  to  see  that  no  concession  of  any  sort  should 
be  made  to  these  new  subjects  which,  in  their  opinion, 
might  in  any  way  lower  the  level  of  scholarship  as  the  ideal 
had  been  accepted  by  the  upholders  of  the  traditional 
course. 


54        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

These  men  are  not  to  be  blamed  for  the  position  which 
they  took.  And  while  I  lived  for  years  in  an  atmosphere 
of  fierce  contest  over  nearly  every  element  necessary  to 
the  development  of  this  school,  I  have  never  felt  toward 
any  of  the  men  who  were  ranged  on  the  other  side  of  the 
struggle  anything  except  recognition  and  appreciation  of 
the  high  standards  of  culture  and  scholarship  which  they 
nourished  and  cultivated  and  of  the  high  ideals  which  they 
thought  could  only  be  sustained  by  devotion  to  traditional 
subjects  in  traditional  ways. 

The  work  of  the  Wharton  School  of  Finance  and  Econ- 
omy was,  in  the  first  place,  confined  to  the  two  upper  years 
of  college,  the  junior  and  senior;  being  based  upon  the  pre- 
liminary education  during  the  first  two  years  which  any 
other  college  in  the  University  might  furnish. 

It  quickly  became  evident  in  the  actual  outworking  of 
this  experiment  that  Mr.  Wharton's  idea  as  to  the  lines 
along  which  this  school  would  develop  was  singularly  pro- 
phetic. It  was  the  outgrowth  of  his  own  experience  as  a 
business  man,  shot  through  with  that  touch  of  imagination 
and  vision  of  the  prophet  which  this  singularly  gifted  man 
possessed  in  an  unusually  high  degree. 

Speaking  generally,  the  foundation  of  this  work,  or 
to  vary  the  simile,  the  backbone  of  the  same,  was  to  be 
found  in  the  study  of  economics,  using  that  term  in  the 
large  sense,  and  the  fundamental  subject  was  theoretical 
economics — the  scientific  study  of  the  phenomena  of  human 
society  from  the  standpoint  of  the  creation,  distribution, 
and  consumption  of  wealth;  this  followed  by  the  applica- 
tion of  these  principles  in  all  the  different  directions  in 
which  the  growing,  expanding  intellect  of  the  modern  man 
is  finding  such  applications — accounting,  insurance,  mer- 
chandising, railway  management,  banking,  etc. 

I  cannot  go  into  this  subject  in  any  great  detail.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  do  it  here.  But  beginning  with  the 
autumn  of  1.S83  we  liad  a  group  of  men  in  this  department 
who  liad  formulated  to  themselves  tlie  distinct  problem  of 
working  out  such  a  curriculum.    The  problem,  of  course, 


PROGRESS  OF  BUSINESS  EDUCATION  55 

was  not  to  be  solved  in  five  years  or  ten  or  twenty  or  even 
twenty-five  years.  Indeed  such  a  problem  is  always  chang- 
ing and  expanding,  always  being  solved  and  never  com- 
pletely solved.  But  we  at  any  rate,  I  think,  may  claim  the 
proud  satisfaction  of  having  contributed  to  the  solution 
of  the  problem  by  that  first  most  important  step  of  formu- 
lating and  then  trying  by  actual  application  in  the  teach- 
ing of  these  subjects  to  work  out  a  practical  curriculum 
which  would  appeal  to  the  man  who  wanted  a  higher  train- 
ing for  business  life. 

The  difficulties  were  many,  aside  from  the  opposition 
of  the  historic  or  traditional  departments,  which  after  all 
could  only  prove  to  be  temporary — the  difficulty  of  course 
lay  in  the  problem  itself.  To  find  a  suitable  subject-matter, 
to  make  it  into  shape,  to  elaborate  it,  to  find  properly 
trained  men  to  present  it — these  were  the  real  difficulties 
which  made  the  early  years  of  this  experiment  times  of 
such  strenuous  and  continued  activity.  First  we  liad  four 
students  and  four  professors.  Then  we  liad  fourteen  stu- 
dents and  then  forty  and  so  the  number  grew,  slowly  but 
solidly — that  is,  the  idea  was  spreading  abroad  in  the  com- 
munity. Some  of  the  students  in  the  institution  who  were 
not  satisfied  with  the  courses  they  were  pursuing  found 
here  what  afforded  them  the  highway  to  the  higliest  train- 
ing and  the  best  results,  and  some  students  with  whom 
other  departments  were  not  satisfied  were  thrown  out  of 
them  and  into  ours  as  the  newest  department  of  all,  until 
the  nickname  which  the  Wharton  Scliool  of  Finance  and 
Economy  had  was  Botany  Bay.  It  didn't  take  it  long  to 
change  the  aspect  of  things  in  this  respect,  though  the 
name  clung  to  us  for  some  time  longer.  Students  from 
other  cities  and  other  states  began  to  hear  about  this  course 
and  wonder  whether  this  was  not  the  work  which  they 
desired.  Some  of  the  sons  of  the  old  Philadelphia  families, 
and  wliat  this  means  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  only  those 
of  you  can  conceive  who  have  lived  in  that  city,  came  into 
this  course,  were  pleased  by  it,  graduated  from  it,  went 
into  the  offices  and  counting-houses  of  their  fathers  and 
spread  about  the  idea  that  this  was  a  good  course. 


56        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

It  was  this  sort  of  thing  which  first  attracted  the  at- 
tention of  Mr.  Khawn  and  led  him  to  look  into  the  matter 
more  carefull3\  He  became  convinced  that  here  was  some- 
thing which  it  would  be  worth  his  while  to  call  to  the  at- 
tention of  his  colleagues  in  the  American  Bankers'  Asso- 
ciation. He  happened  to  be  a  member  of  the  executive 
committee.  He  therefore  got  out  a  statement  concerning 
the  Wharton  School  of  Finance  and  Economy,  appending 
to  it  the  communication  which  Mr.  Joseph  Wharton  had 
sent  to  the  trustees  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  with 
his  deed  of  gift  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  the 
endowment  of  this  project. 

Mr.  Rhawn  sent  this  report  on  the  Wharton  School  to 
the  members  of  the  Association  with  a  request  for  any 
suggestions  which  they  might  have  to  make  on  this  subject. 
The  result  was  an  invitation  to  myself  to  give  an  address 
before  the  American  Bankers'  Association  at  its  session 
held  September  3-5,  1890,  in  Saratoga  Springs,  New 
York.  This  gave  me  an  opportunity  to  present  to  the  mem- 
bers of  this  influential  organization  the  whole  idea  of  the 
university  education  of  business  men  and  to  defend  before 
them  the  proposition  tliat  the  American  university  ought 
to  organize  such  courses  of  instruction  in  commerce  and 
business  as  would  make  it  worth  the  while  of  any  young 
man  who  was  aspiring  to  the  largest  kind  of  success  in 
these  great  careers  to  complete  this  curriculum  of  study 
at  the  university  before  going  into  the  practical  work  of 
these  callings. 

The  ground  was  already  prepared  in  a  certain  sense 
for  the  seed.  The  growing  complication  of  political,  indus- 
trial, commercial,  and  social  life  in  the  United  States  had 
been  turning  the  attention  of  the  American  people  to  the 
necessity  of  profounder  study  of  all  these  subjects  if  we 
were  going  to  solve  tlie  great  problems  of  our  national  life. 
Courses  in  economics  and  politics  and  sociology,  though 
not  under  that  term,  liad  already  been  worked  out  in  con- 
siderable detail  in  some  of  the  leading  American  institu- 
tions and  these  subjects  were  all  represented  by  elementary 


PROGRESS  OF  BUSINESS  EDUCATION  57 

■courses,  at  any  rate,  in  economics  in  nearly  every  American 
college.  There  was  a  great  sentiment  in  favor  of  a  large 
extension  of  the  facilities  for  the  investigation  and  instruc- 
tion in  these  subjects  throughout  the  country. 

The  result  of  Mr.  Rhawn's  active  interest  in  the  sub- 
ject was  the  appointment  of  a  permanent  committee  of 
the  Bankers'  Association  on  schools  of  finance  and  econ- 
omy, of  which  Mr.  William  H.  Rhawn  was  chairman — the 
other  members  being  George  S.  Coe,  Lyman  J.  Gage,  and 
Morton  McMichael — and  the  following  resolution  was 
adopted  by  the  convention: 

Resolved^  That  the  American  Bankers'  Association 
most  earnestly  commends,  not  only  to  the  bankers,  but  to 
all  intelligent  and  progressive  citizens  throughout  the 
country,  the  founding  of  schools  of  finance  and  economy 
for  the  business  training  of  youth,  to  be  established  in  con- 
nection with  the  universities  and  colleges  of  the  land  upon 
a  general  plan  like  that  of  the  Wharton  School  of  Finance 
and  Economy  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  so  ably 
set  forth  by  Professor  James  in  his  most  admirable  address 
before  this  convention. 

Resolved^  further,  That  the  executive  council  is 
hereby  directed  to  carefully  consider  and  if  possible  devise 
some  feasible  plan  whereby  this  Association  may  encourage 
or  promote  the  organization  of  a  school  or  schools  of 
finance  and  economy  among  our  institutions  of  learning, 
and  report  upon  the  same  to  the  next  convention. 

These  resolutions  had  been  proposed  by  Mr.  Rhawn  on 
September  5,  1890,  and  had  been  warmly  seconded  by  Mr. 
Edward  Atkinson,  the  well-known  publicist  and  by  other 
members  of  the  Association;  some  of  whom,  by  the  way, 
were  members  of  boards  of  trustees  of  leading  American 
institutions. 

In  pursuance  of  the  authority  given  to  this  committee 
a  pamphlet  of  forty  pages  was  published  on  January  1, 
1891,  entitled  "Education  of  Business  Men,"  containing 
the  address  which  I  had  delivered  before  the  Bankers'  Asso- 
ciation at  Saratoga  Springs,  September  3,  1890,  the  plan 


58        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

of  the  Wharton  School  at  the  University  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  the  proceedings  of  the  Association  relative  to  the  sub- 
ject of  my  address,  and  concerning  the  founding  of  schools 
of  finance  and  economy,  all  prefaced  with  an  address  of  the 
committee  respectfully  inviting  from  the  members  of  the 
Association  and  bankers  generally,  and  from  all  friends  of 
the  cause  of  education,  such  expressions  of  opinion  and 
suggestions  as  might  aid  the  committee  in  its  work  under 
the  resolution. 

Copies  of  this  pamphlet  were  mailed  to  all  banks  and 
bankers,  as  well  as  members  of  the  Association,  to  leading 
newspapers  and  journals  and  to  the  universities  and  col- 
leges of  the  land.  Additional  copies  were  also  sent  to  the 
universities  and  colleges  in  the  following  October  with  a 
special  circular  addressed  to  them  renewing  the  request 
for  expressions  of  opinion  as  to  the  value  and  feasibility 
of  establishing  a  school  or  schools  of  finance  and  economy. 

In  response  to  these  pamphlets  and  circulars,  as  well 
as  to  earlier  pamphlets  concerning  the  plan  of  the  Wharton 
School  of  Finance  and  Economy  sent  in  1889  and  1890, 
encouraging  notices  appeared  in  the  press  of  the  country 
and  a  large  number  of  letters  were  received  by  the  com- 
mittee from  bankers  and  editors,  including  some  of  the 
most  distinguished,  in  which  the  founding  of  schools  of 
finance  and  economy  was  most  highly  commended  and 
urged  in  the  strongest  terms. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  American  Bankers'  Association 
held  in  New  Orleans  in  November,  1891,  all  this  matter 
which  had  been  collected  by  tlie  committee  was  submitted 
for  the  consideration  of  the  Association.  It  was  suggested 
that  it  would  be  well  for  the  Association  to  cause  an  ex- 
amination to  be  made  into  similar  schools  abroad  by  send- 
ing some  man  to  Europe  for  the  purpose,  who  could  give 
the  results  of  his  investigations  in  an  address  at  a  future 
convention,  from  which  it  could  go  forth  with  tlie  added 
emphasis  of  the  endorsement  of  such  an  organization.  In 
this  manner  the  Association  could,  at  small  cost,  do  ines- 
timable service  to  the  cause  it  sought  to  promote,  namely, 


PROGRESS  OF  BUSINESS  EDUCATION  59 

the  education  of  business  men.  And  it  was  recommended 
that  a  standing  committee  of  five,  to  be  known  as  a  com- 
mittee on  schools  of  finance  and  economy,  be  appointed 
which  should  be  especially  charged  with  all  matters  relat- 
ing to  the  encouragement  and  promotion  of  schools  of 
finance  and  economy,  and  to  which  all  matters  shall  be 
referred,  which  committee  shall  report  prior  to  the  annual 
convention  or  oftener  as  may  be  required. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  executive  council  of  the  Ameri- 
can Bankers'  Association  held  in  New  Orleans,  November 
10,  1891,  the  report  of  this  committee  on  the  Wharton 
School  of  Finance  and  Economy  was  approved  and  the 
Bankers'  Association  adopted  a  resolution  authorizing  and 
directing  the  executive  council  to  appoint  a  standing  com- 
mittee of  five  to  carry  out  the  recommendations  made  in  the 
report  of  the  committee  on  schools  of  finance  and  economy. 
This  committee  consisted  of  William  H.  Rhawn,  George  S. 
Coe,  Lyman  J.  Gage,  Morton  McMichael,  and  George  A. 
Butler. 

The  Association  printed,  shortly  after,  a  circular  con- 
taining extracts  from  letters  received  from  presidents  of 
universities  and  colleges,  from  members  of  the  boards  of 
trustees  of  sucli  institutions,  and  from  prominent  business 
men  and  editors  throughout  the  country,  nearly  all  of  them 
endorsing  the  general  idea. 

It  was  this  persistent  and  earnest  work  on  the  part  of 
a  single  man  in  the  American  Bankers'  Association  which 
did  more  to  get  this  idea  of  the  desirability  of  these  special 
courses  in  commerce  and  business  in  our  American  univer- 
sities than  any  other  agency  at  work  in  the  promotion  of 
this  object  in  the  whole  field. 

This  shows  how  much  a  single  man  may  accomplish 
in  the  way  of  helping  toward  an  uplift  in  the  community  if, 
without  any  suggestion  of  advantage  to  himself,  he  utilizes 
the  agencies  at  hand  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  good 
causes  and  urging  them  upon  the  attention  of  the  public. 

Mr.  Rhawn  had  with  him  the  four  distinguished  men 
whom  I  have  mentioned.     Thev  carried  with  them  this 


60         COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

great  American  Bankers'  Association  with  members  in 
every  state  and  in  almost  every  town.  In  this  Association 
were  man}'  men  who  were  regents  and  trustees  and  mem- 
bers of  the  visiting  committees  of  our  great  institutions  of 
learning.  And  in  this  way  by  urging  this  subject  upon 
the  attention  of  college  presidents  and  college  faculties  and 
upon  the  attention  of  college  trustees  and  upon  the  news- 
paper press  of  the  country  it  became  possible  to  give  this 
subject  an  impetus  which  could  have  been  brought  to  it  in 
hardly  any  other  way. 

This  committee  on  finance  and  economy  invited  me 
to  go  to  Europe  on  their  behalf  and  make  an  investigation 
into  the  conditions  of  higher  education  of  business  men  in 
the  various  European  countries.  I  did  this  in  the  summer 
of  1892  and  presented  an  outline  of  the  result  of  my  studies 
in  an  address  before  the  American  Bankers'  Association 
in  San  Francisco,  September  7,  1892 ;  and  a  formal  report, 
somewhat  later,  upon  the  commercial  schools  of  Europe. 
This  address  and  this  report  were  printed  by  the  American 
Bankers'  Association  in  a  large  edition  and  distributed 
throughout  the  country  to  university  authorities,  editors, 
and  business  men.  From  this  time  may  be  dated  real  ac- 
tivity in  these  subjects.  The  University  of  Chicago,  which 
had  just  been  founded,  incorporated  into  its  original 
scheme  the  plan  of  a  college  of  practical  affairs,  which 
should  provide  for  this  need  of  a  center  of  university  in- 
struction in  subjects  relating  to  business  and  commerce. 
Michigan,  Wisconsin,  and  other  great  universities  followed 
at  greater  or  lesser  intervals,  until  today  even  Harvard,  in^ 
many  respects  the  most  conservative  of  our  American  in- 
stitutions, has  swung  strongly  and  completely  into  line  in 
favor  of  the  view  that  there  is  something  which  we  can 
teach  wliich  will  be  of  value  to  the  man  who  expects  to 
enter  upon  a  business  career  and  wishes  to  do  it  witli  large 
view  and  deep  insight. 

The  work  here  was  begun  in  1902  under  the  leadership 
of  Dean  Kinley,  and  to  his  insight,  wisdom,  energy,  and 
devotion  is  owing  the  success  we  here  have  achieved. 


PROGRESS  OF  BUSINESS  EDUCATION  61 

Our  problems  are  not  by  any  means  solved.  Indeed 
we  may  say  we  are  only  getting  ready  to  grapple  with  them 
in  earnest.  But  the  problem  is  at  any  rate  finally  stated  in 
such  a  definite  way  that  even  a  wayfaring  man  can  under- 
stand its  general  scope.  And  we  are  trying  here  at  the 
University  of  Illinois  to  work  out  a  curriculum  which  will 
answer  this  public  need  of  a  systematic  scheme  of  instruc- 
tion which  it  would  be  worth  the  while  of  every  young  fel- 
low with  the  proper  training  to  pursue  before  he  actually 
goes  into  the  practical  work  of  the  office  or  the  counting- 
house. 

I  shall  have  occasion  to  discuss  in  another  connection 
in  this  same  program  one  or  two  of  the  important  points 
which  I  should  like  to  present  to  the  attention  of  our  stu- 
dents now  in  the  University,  and  as  suggestions  to  the 
parents  of  lads  who  are  looking  forward  to  business  ca- 
reers; but  I  shall  content  myself  with  one  general  remark 
in  regard  to  the  desirability  of  establishing  and  developing 
such  courses  as  will  prepare  business  men  better  for  their 
work — if  it  is  possible  to  discover  or  elaborate. 

The  development  of  these  higher  courses  in  commerce 
is  strictly  in  harmony  with  the  general  course  of  educa- 
tional development  in  the  United  States  during  the  last 
century,  and  we  shall  be  better  able  to  appreciate  the  edu- 
cational value  of  this  development  if  we  glance  at  the  his- 
tory of  education  in  this  country  during  this  period. 

The  result  of  recent  educational  development  may,  I 
think,  be  summed  up  in  the  following  statement: 

There  has  been  a  steadily  growing  belief  on  the  part 
of  the  American  people  in  the  field  of  systematic  school 
training,  and  that  in  two  directions  especially.  First,  in 
the  desirability  of  a  wide  diffusion  of  elementary  educa- 
tion, a  steadily  growing  conviction  that  all  classes  of 
society — rich  and  poor  alike — should  have  a  thorough 
training  in  the  elements  of  a  sound  English  education: 
reading,  writing,  ciphering,  etc.  Second,  in  the  desirability 
of  some  special  professional  training  looking  to  the  calling 
one  expects  to  take  up.    There  is  at  this  moment  practically 


62        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND   BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

no  longer  a  difference  of  opinion  among  intelligent  people 
on  the  fundamental  importance  of  a  sound  elementary 
training.  As  to  the  second  question,  it  may  be  safely 
affirmed  that  the  number  of  those  who  believe  in  the  neces- 
sity of  a  thorough  special  training  for  the  various  callings 
of  life  is  steadily  increasing.  This  will  become  evident  to 
anyone  who  takes  the  trouble  to  acquaint  himself  with 
our  educational  history. 

In  1760,  toward  the  close  of  the  French  and  Indian 
War,  only  a  few  years  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, the  only  schools  in  this  country  were  the  elementary 
school,  the  grammar  school,  and  the  college.  Taking  the 
country  as  a  whole,  it  cannot  be  said  that  very  many  pupils 
were  to  be  found  in  the  various  institutions.  A  knowledge 
of  the  three  R's  was  not  by  any  means  universal ;  the  gram- 
mar schools  were  not  numerous  or  largely  attended;  the 
colleges  were  few  in  number  and  of  small  size.  The  Ameri- 
can college  of  that  day  had  a  very  narrow  curriculum,  con- 
sisting chiefly  of  Latin,  Greek  and  mathematics.  It  lim- 
ited itself  to  offering  a  so-called  liberal  education  to  such 
young  men  as  were  looking  forward  to  one  of  the  learned 
professions — law,  medicine,  or  theology.  Aside  from  these 
institutions,  there  was  practically  no  opportunity  to  obtain 
any  sort  of  systematic  school  training.  There  was  no  medi- 
cal school,  no  law  school,  no  technological  school,  no  school 
of  engineering,  no  dental  scliool,  or  veterinary  school,  or 
musical  conservatory,  nor  indeed  any  of  the  scores  of 
special  institutions  now  open  to  the  youth  of  our  country. 

The  first  professional  school  in  this  country  of  any  sort 
was  the  Medical  School  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania, 
which  was  founded  in  1763,  and  it  was  not  until  the  second 
quarter  of  this  century  that  any  special  schools,  except 
those  for  law,  medicine  and  theology  were  organized. 

With  tlie  introduction  of  the  normal  schools  about  1840 
began  the  era  of  special  schools  in  this  country,  and  from 
tliat  (late  to  tin's,  eacli  year  has  witnessed  not  only  the 
opening  of  new  professional  schools,  but  the  establishment 
of  some  new  kind  of  school  to  satisfy  the  demand  for  better 
training  for  practical  life. 


PROGRESS  OF  BUSINESS  EDUCATION  63 

Today  we  have  schools  where  the  future  lawyer, 
dentist,  veterinary  surgeon,  clergyman,  civil  engineer, 
mechanical  engineer,  architect,  musician,  painter,  elemen- 
tary-school teacher  can  find  each  a  special  training  looking 
toward  the  specific  duties  of  his  future  calling.  Nor  are  the 
special  schools  to  be  found  only  with  reference  to  the 
learned  or  quasi-learned  professions  just  mentioned.  They 
are  springing  upon  every  hand  as  preparatory  institutions 
for  the  mechanical  trades  as  well.  The  various  manual- 
training  schools,  the  trade  schools,  and  institutes  of  all 
kinds  offer  today  facilities  for  the  learning  of  plumbing, 
carpentering,  iron-working  and  typesetting.  In  a  word, 
the  era  of  systematic  training  in  an  educational  institution 
for  the  active  duties  of  life  as  opposed  to  the  era  of  hap- 
hazard learning  one's  business  in  the  office,  the  field  or  the 
shop  seems  to  be  fairly  opened. 

Even  the  old-fashioned  American  college  itself  has 
felt  the  magic  influence  of  this  new  spirit.  For  a  long 
time  absolutely  inaccessible  to  any  appeals  for  a  broadening 
or  specialization  of  its  functions,  it  has  within  the  last  two 
generations  entered  upon  a  new  career,  and  today  the  man 
who  wishes  to  prepare  himself  to  teach  any  branch  of  hu- 
man science  will  find  somewhere  in  our  American  college 
or  university  system  an  opportunity  to  get  that  special 
training  which  underlies  the  highest  sort  of  work  in  every 
department. 

It  would  be  a  grave  mistake  to  suppose  that  this  devel- 
opment has  gone  on  spontaneously,  or  quietly,  or  uniformly. 
Every  step  in  this  line  of  progress  has  been  achieved  in 
the  face  of  indifference  or  of  active  and  often  bitter  oppo- 
sition. It  has  been  in  nearly  every  case  the  work  of  a  few 
men  of  superior  insight  and  foresight;  of  men  who  having 
discovered  a  need  had  the  energy  and  public  spirit  to  initi- 
ate and  prosecute  a  movement  which  should  end  in  its  satis- 
faction. And  even  now  there  are  few  portions  of  the  coun- 
try where  the  special  schools  mentioned  above  exist  in 
sufficient  numbers  to  meet  the  demand.  Nor  can  it  be  said 
that  the  victory  is  yet  won,  in  the  sense  that  all  people  are 


64         COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

convinced  of  the  wisdom  of  the  movement;  but  only  that 
the  number  of  adherents  of  this  tendency  is  rapidly  increas- 
ing, and  the  active  opposition  is  steadily  diminishing. 

Even  now  you  can  find  a  physician  here  and  there  wha 
advises  a  young  man  not  to  go  to  a  medical  school,  but 
rather  learn  medicine  in  his  office  and  by  accompanying 
him  on  his  rounds.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  a  lawyer 
to  advise  his  j^oung  friend  who  is  ambitious  to  enter  the 
legal  career  not  to  waste  his  time  in  a  laAV  school.  There 
are  still  clerg}^men  who  depreciate  the  advantages  of  theo- 
logical seminaries.  You  will  still  find  engineers  who  think 
the  way  they  learned  the  business,  viz.,  practical  field  work^ 
the  best. 

But,  on  the  whole,  it  is  now  perfectly  clear  where  the 
victory  in  this  great  contest  lies.  With  every  improvement 
in  our  special  schools,  and  fortunately  for  us,  this  im- 
provement is  proceeding  rapidly,  the  ratio  of  those  who 
seek  a  preliminary  preparation  for  life  through  them 
rather  than  in  the  immediate  entrance  into  the  shop,  the 
office,  or  the  pulpit  is  bound  to  increase. 

The  victory  of  the  well-planned,  carefully  elaborated, 
well-taught  curriculum  of  the  special  school  over  the  hap- 
hazard pick-up-as-you-can  training  of  so-called  practical 
life  is  as  sure  in  the  domain  of  iron  and  wood  work  as  in 
that  of  law  and  medicine  and  in  that  of  business  and  com- 
merce, and  that  victory  is  sure  and  speedy  in  proportion  as 
the  demand  for  efficiency  becomes  more  imperative. 

You  will  note  that  I  have  said  nothing  about  the  neces- 
sity of  liberal  education.  It  is  not  because  I  do  not  regard 
it  as  of  the  highest  importance,  but  because  it  does  not 
immediately  concern  the  point  I  am  presenting.  The  need 
of  the  special  school  is  imperative  alike  for  the  college 
graduate  and  the  farm  hand  from  the  plough  tail.  The 
most  extensive  study  of  Latin,  Greek  and  mathematics, 
literature  and  history,  does  not  dispense  with  the  necessity 
of  careful  medical  training  for  the  future  physician,  or  of 
careful  legal  training  for  the  future  lawyer,  or  of  careful 
business    training    for  the   future    merchant   or   banker^ 


PROGRESS  OF  BUSINESS  EDUCATION  65 

though  it  may  well  be  that  the  special  school  for  the  man 
with  extensive  liberal  training  should  be  separated  from 
that  for  the  man  with  defective  training  in  this  respect. 

I  said  a  moment  ago  that  thir  educational  development 
in  the  direction  of  special  schools  had  been  in  our  country 
very  uneiiual.  This  uneciuality  has  been  especially  vis- 
ible in  two  respects.  In  the  first  place,  geographically,  in 
that  certain  portions  of  our  country  have  not  kept  pace 
with  others  in  the  development  of  their  special  schools, 
so  that  if  a  boy  wishes  to  get  the  aid  of  systematic  training 
along  certain  lines,  he  may  have  to  go  hundreds  and  even 
thousands  of  miles  to  get  it.  In  the  second  place,  mate- 
rially, in  that  certain  departments  of  our  national  life 
have  been  almost  entirely  neglected  in  this  development,  or 
perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  say  they  have  not  yet  been 
reached. 

Such  a  department  was  this  whole  field  of  higher 
commercial  education  twenty-five  years  ago.  At  that  time 
this  great  sphere  of  commercial  life  and  activity  in  which 
so  many  thousands  and  millions  of  our  fellow-citizens  are 
engaged  had  received  almost  no  attention  on  its  educational 
side.  The  lawyer,  the  physician,  the  clergyman,  the  engi- 
neer, the  farmer,  the  teacher,  had  even  at  that  time  his 
special  school  whose  curriculum  discussed  the  matters  he 
needed  to  know  in  his  future  work ;  but  the  merchant,  the 
banker,  the  insurance  director,  the  railroad  manager,  the 
business  man  in  general,  was  in  1890  where  he  had  been 
a  century  before,  so  far  as  his  business  was  then  in  exist- 
ence. He  still  had  to  enter  the  counting-house  or  the  office 
and  learn  his  business  as  best  he  could  without  systematic 
assistance.  The  only  educational  lielp  open  to  him  then 
was  that  which  might  come  to  him  in  common  with  every 
member  of  society  in  the  form  of  liberal  education  extend- 
ing, if  he  pleased,  through  the  college. 

The  situation  is  changing — nay,  it  has  changed  t  flny. 
It  is  possible  for  the  boy  looking  forward  to  a  busines*-- 
career  to  find  in  most  of  our  great  institutions  facilities 
for  studying  certain  subjects  which  have  a  special  relatioM 


66        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

to  the  practical  work  of  after  life.  But  the  opportunities 
are,  after  all,  comparatively  meager  and  the  number  of 
the  students  utilizing  these  opportunities  almost  infinitesi- 
mal compared  with  the  great  number  who  are  looking  for- 
ward to  this  kind  of  work. 

Our  problem  is  to  devise  the  curriculum,  elaborate  the 
subjects  of  instruction,  secure  adequate  equipment  and 
adequate  teaching  force  and  then  train  the  public  to  a 
recognition  of  the  value  and  importance  of  this  work. 
When  that  is  done  the  boy  who  is  expecting  to  enter  the 
higher  lines  of  business  success  will  as  inevitably  look 
toward  the  university  to  secure  a  part  of  his  training  as 
does  today  the  future  lawyer,  physician,  or  engineer.  And 
when  agriculture  and  business  begin  to  realize  what  all 
this  means  to  them  the  attendance  at  our  universities  will 
rise  to  the  records  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  during  the 
Middle  Ages  when  it  was  said  that  thirty  thousand  stu- 
dents were  in  residence  at  these  centers. 


THIRD  SESSION 
COMMERCIAL   EDUCATION    AND    BUSINESS   SUCCESS 


Commencing  Right 

Alexander  H.  Revell 
President  of  Alexander  H.  Revell  &  Company 

Probably  in  no  other  field  of  human  effort  has  there 
been  such  advance  and  broadening  as  in  that  of  education. 
There  is  a  feeling  that  a  rich  and  growing  country  should 
provide  the  very  best  educational  opportunities  for  its 
people.  "Nothing  is  too  good  for  our  boys  and  girls"  is  a 
statement  often  heard.  "The  system  of  education  that 
suited  the  needs  and  ideals  of  our  forefathers  and  our- 
selves will  not  do  for  our  children."  Life,  it  seems,  has 
changed.     It  is  larger,  richer,  swifter  than  it  once  was. 

As  you  know,  the  original  educational  idea  was  that 
of  equipping  prospective  citizens  for  getting  a  livelihood 
and  discharging  their  duties  as  citizens.  From  this  came 
the  common  schools,  but  as  the  men  of  influence  in  our 
early  history  were  men  of  parts,  common  schools  were 
soon  supplemented  by  the  college.  Since  that  day  there  has 
been  an  evolution  in  the  subjects  of  study  in  colleges.  The 
most  recent  in  one  of  the  most  famous  colleges  is  said  to 
be  a  Wit  and  Humor  Department. 

While  we  thoroughly  believe  in  the  great  universities — 
the  speaker  being  a  trustee  in  one  of  the  largest  of  the 
country — still  is  it  not  possible  that  many  colleges  are 
slow  in  coming  back  to  the  fundamental  idea — the  idea  of 
simplicity,  the  certainty  of  having  young  people  know  more 
of  the  practical  affairs  of  life? 

The  conviction  is  growing,  tliat  the  smaller  and  less 
pretentious  colleges  and  schools,  as  well  as  some  state 
universities,  where  the  students  come  in  more  direct  con- 
tact with  the  leading  minds  of  the  institution,  have  been 
and  are  today  producing  the  larger  percentage  of  men  who 
achieve  deserved  fame.  The  small  schools  or  colleges  are 
heard  of  when  one  is  reading  about  some  of  our  most  suc- 

69 


70        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

cessful  men,  and  finds  that  so  humble  have  been  the  sources 
of  their  education  that  one  has  some  little  trouble  to  locate 
the  colleges  or  schools  which  they  attended. 

The  presidents  and  professors  of  the  colleges  over  the 
country  average  splendid  types  of  men.  Where  the  stu- 
dents get  close  to  them  and  respect  them  for  the  wholesome 
atmosphere  they  unconsciously  seem  to  carry  rather  than 
for  the  positions  they  fill,  the  result  will  show  a  better  type 
of  student.  The  students  should  respect  the  position,  but 
the  respect  for  the  teacher  should  come  first.  The  most 
important  thing  a  man  or  woman  can  learn  in  college 
years  is  moral  tone  which  includes  a  serious,  virtuous  and 
as  well  as  industrious  course  of  life. 

It  is  generally  conceded  that  commercial  departments 
in  colleges  have  a  strong  foundation  for  existence  in  this 
country.  Every  year  the  demand  is  becoming  stronger  for 
schools  which  supply  facilities  for  the  practical  training 
of  young  men  and  women  who  wish  to  enter  upon  any  part 
of  a  commercial  career. 

I  hasten  to  repeat,  if  you  will  allow  me,  that  there  is 
not  a  doubt  in  my  mind  but  that  the  all-around  college-bred 
man  has  far  the  advantage  in  life,  if  he  once  gets  a  good 
start  after  leaving  college,  but  so  often  it  is  the  start  that 
counts.  Broad,  genuine  college  culture  is  valuable  beyond 
price,  the  loss  of  which  is  the  one  great  regret  of  many 
a  non-college  man  who  is  more  or  less  successful  in  life. 

In  what  I  shall  say,  therefore,  I  am  going  to  assume 
that  there  are  certain  matters  which  are  and  will  be  in- 
cluded in  the  course  of  studies  here  in  this  beautiful  new 
building,  which  will  have  specific  attention.  Say,  for  ex- 
ample, matters  pertaining  to : 

Insurance 

Expense  of  doing  business 

The  proper  and  improper  way  of  figuring  percentage 

Advertising 

The  sales  department 

Organization  of  help 

Economy  of  time  and  energy  of  employees 


COMMENCING   RIGHT  71 

Working  by  a  plan  which  means  team  work,  etc. 

Mind  culture 

Accountancy 

Banking 

Finance,  public  and  private 

Labor 

General  wastage 

So,  I  shall  today  call  more  direct  attention  to  what 
might  be  termed  "All-around  Success" — "Commencing 
Right."  Faculty  members  may  find  in  my  address  refer- 
ences which,  if  they  think  valuable,  they  will  endeavor  to 
emphasize  or  explain  later  on. 

There  is  coming  to  be  a  more  fixed  demand  for  certain 
moral  standards  in  business  such  as  there  are  in  law,  medi- 
cine, literature,  and  theology.  I  would  like  to  see  this  par- 
ticular feature  given  more  attention  in  colleges  of  the 
United  States.  The  really  great  men,  leaders,  if  you  will, 
or  who  are  approaching  the  J.  Pierpont  Morgan  type,  cap- 
tains of  industry,  of  finance,  or  of  law,  are  men  who  learn 
to  subordinate  self  to  tliat  which  is  far  greater — the  gen- 
eral public  welfare.  This  gives  confidence — makes  a  leader 
whom  others  follow,  as  Morgan  had  his  thousands  of  will- 
ing followers.  In  other  words,  the  selfish  man  sometimes 
accumulates  money  but  never  has  real  satisfaction  in  life. 
Otliers  are  suspicious  of  him  and  he  is  not  on  good  terms 
with  himself. 

Power  to  think  for  oneself,  the  intelligence  to  under- 
stand those  one  does  not  agree  with,  strength  to  walk  with 
head  erect  and  purpose  firm  when  others  do  not  agree 
with  one,  when  they  snub  or  desert,  although  one  feels 
honest,  sane  and  rational  in  one's  position.  These  things 
are  essential  to  every  successful  career. 

And  so  let  me  advise  that  as  most  young  men  must 
be  wage-earners  at  some  period  in  their  lives,  along  with 
constant  self-mastery  and  constant  desire  for  education, 
which  ought  to  mean  improvement,  a  willingness  to  give 
into  one's  position  more  than  one  receives  on  salary  day, 
is  one  of  the  essential  qualifications.    This  goes  to  make  a 


72        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND   BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

winner  and  to  make  for  success.  Show  me  the  boy  or  the 
young  man  who  is  not  afraid  that  he  is  doing  more  than 
he  is  paid  for,  and  you  show  one  who  is  likely  to  soon  have 
others  working  for  him.  When  I  say  working  for  him,  I 
do  not  necessarily  mean  as  an  employer.  There  are  many 
men  today  in  this  era  of  vast  corporations  who  may  be 
termed  the  heads  of  departments.  The  men  are  working  for 
him  much  the  same  as  in  former  years  they  worked  for  the 
small  employer  of  five,  ten,  or  fifty  men. 

When  applied  to  business  or  to  the  professions,  the 
scriptural  passage,  "Cast  thy  bread  upon  the  waters  and 
after  many  days  it  shall  return  unto  thee,"  may  be  quoted 
to  enforce  the  need  of  courage  in  striking  out  for  a  career, 
as  well  as  referring  to  kindness.  Its  use  is  broad  and  com- 
prehensive. The  average  student  will  soon  have  energy, 
application,  and  labor  to  invest.  The  ability  acquired  in 
the  effort  to  give  more  than  one  receives  will  make  a  win- 
ner. If  you  do  not  agree  in  this  statement,  ask  some  who 
have  won.  The  men  who  started  in  with  only  their  hands 
and  their  native  talents  and  who  have  made  great  names 
or  large  fortunes  will  tell  you  that  if  they  had  not  given 
more  of  service  than  they  were  paid  for  at  the  pivotal  time 
in  their  careers  they  might  not  have  succeeded. 

My  belief  is  that  ninety  per  cent  of  all  employees  work 
merely  for  tlieir  wage.  The  other  ten  per  cent  is  working 
for  the  wage  plus  ability,  knowledge,  future.  It  is  from 
this  ten  per  cent  that  leaders  are  chosen  when  leaders  are 
wanted.  The  ninety  per  cent  by  their  own  acts,  either  be- 
cause of  lack  of  character  or  carelessness,  cut  themselves 
out  of  a  chance  at  leadership  and  tighten  the  bands  which 
hold  them  down.  Advise  your  young  man  to  be  counted 
among  tlie  valuable  "live  assets"  of  whatever  interest  em- 
ploys liis  time  rather  than  as  a  "dead  one"  wlio  returns  just 
enougli  of  value  to  hold  his  place. 

Our  next  sign  on  tlie  road  to  a  satisfying  career  bears 
the  legend  "(iet  out  of  the  ruts."  Ah,  but  you  tell  me  this 
is  the  age  of  specialties.  One  man  cannot  do  everything, 
and  "specialty"  is  only  another  name   for  "rut."     True 


COMMENCING  RIGHT  73 

enough.  But  did  you  ever  notice  that  the  man  who  comes 
to  boss  the  jobs  of  others,  not  only  knows  his  own  particular 
job  to  a  finish,  but  is  fairly  informed  on  the  work  of  the 
other  men?  The  young  man  who  will  shut  his  eyes  be- 
cause he  is  afraid  he  will  learn  something  about  the  gen- 
eral proposition,  will  handicap  himself;  certainly  so  if  get- 
ting as  nearly  as  possible  to  the  top  is  the  goal  sought  for. 

By  all  means  focus  the  energy  on  one's  own  distinctive 
specialty.  That  is  essential.  Become  its  master.  Then  on 
the  other  side  deliberately  set  out  to  learn  as  much  as  one 
may  of  the  other  lines  of  the  work.  "Mind  your  own  busi- 
ness" is  not  a  bad  slogan,  but  one  may  study  at  odd  times 
and  with  judgment  the  different  lines  and  departments  of 
the  interest  in  which  one's  services  may  be  employed. 
Some  say  that  to  go  beyond  one's  special  position  is 
frowned  upon  or  made  impossible  by  an  employer.  I  do  not 
think  the  employer  ever  lived  who  prevented  the  cream  of 
his  establishment,  the  man  with  initiative,  from  rising  to 
the  surface.  The  advance  in  knowledge  and  of  an  employee 
himself  means  the  advance  of  the  employer's  interests.  An 
employer  would  rather  pay  a  young  man  five  thousand 
dollars  a  year  than  five  hundred.  A  five-hundred-dollar 
clerkship  is  worth  just  about  that  amount  to  an  employer. 
A  flve-thousand-dollar  man  is  generally  worth  many  times 
that  sum  to  a  commercial  enterprise. 

Many  young  men  and  young  women  get  the  idea  that 
it  is  not  worth  while  to  apply  themselves  in  a  line  which 
they  do  not  care  to  adopt  as  their  life  work.  Chance  has 
thrown  them  into  this  or  that  field,  and  the  necessity  for 
earning  a  living  week  by  week  keeps  them  there.  They 
intend  to  break  away  as  soon  as  there  is  an  opening  in 
something  congenial.  Until  then  they  will  take  things 
easy  and  do  only  enough  to  keep  on  the  pay-roll.  They 
are  thinking  of  the  future  in  the  wrong  way.  They  are 
killing  time  without  any  consideration  for  the  ability  which 
will  come  out  of  forcing  oneself  to  do  work  one  does  not 
like.  This  kind  of  time  serving  that  I  have  referred  to 
disintegrates  an  employee  as  surely  as  a  few  drops  of  water 


74         COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

causes  a  lump  of  lime  to  crumble  into  fragments.  He  will 
be  tossed  from  pillar  to  post,  crowded  out  of  one  position 
into  a  poorer  one  until  his  spirit  is  broken  and  his  ambition 
and  opportunities  are  gone. 

There  are  many  things  which  do  not  always  appear 
important  in  starting  a  successful  career.  I  am  going  to 
mention  some  of  them  regardless  of  whether  you  agree  as  to 
their  importance  or  not. 

First,  I  will  mention  dress  and  address.  One  of  the 
important  things,  at  least  primarily,  is  to  dress  as  well  as 
one  may.  I  do  not  mean  to  be  extravagant;  one  does  not 
require  the  latest  fashion  in  clothes,  but  at  all  times  the 
clothing  should  be  well  brushed,  and  to  a  reasonable  extent 
well  pressed.  The  linen  should  be  as  clean  as  one's  work 
will  allow  and  one's  pocket-book  can  afford  from  week  to 
week.  Sometimes  I  think  many  young  men  ought  to  save 
money  in  other  ways  and  invest  it  in  clean  linen,  or  in 
making  a  better  appearance.  Time  was  when  a  young 
man  applied  for  a  position  he  would  be  asked  for  his 
handwriting,  etc.  In  this  era  of  stenography  and  type- 
writing, counting-machines  and  many  other  inventions, 
what  first  impresses  the  average  business  man  is  the  dress, 
address,  and  conversation — the  correct  use  of  English  by 
the  applicant.  One  may  say :  "it  costs  money  to  press 
clothes."  I  know  a  young  man  who  has  but  two  pairs  of 
trousers  and  when  he  is  wearing  one  the  other  is  betweeii 
the  spring  and  mattress  folded  very  carefully.  When  he 
sleeps  at  night  he  is  saving  money  pressing  his  trousers. 

One  need  not  tell  women  to  dress  as  well  as  tliey  can. 
They  always  do,  and  we  admire  them  for  it.  But  men  too 
often  overlook  the  importance  of  appearance.  There  are 
exceptions  to  every  rule,  but  the  more  cleanly  one  keeps 
his  clothing,  the  more  cleanly  one  is  likely  to  act  in  the 
every  day  affairs  of  life,  the  straighter,  the  keener  he  is 
likely  to  talk  to  those  he  comes  in  contact  with,  Tlie  more 
cleanly  lie  is  in  dress,  the  more  cleanly  he  is  liable  to  be  in 
thought. 


COMMENCING   RIGHT  75 

Another  thing  you  should  impress  upon  the  students, 
when  "The  Making  of  a  Career"  is  under  consideration,  is 
to  be  calm ;  be  calm  under  all  circumstances.  There  are  so 
many  men  who  go  to  pieces,  figuratively  speaking,  under 
what  are  unimportant,  as  well  as  trying  ordeals.  One 
meets  them  often.  They  impress  their  point  by  hammering 
on  a  desk  or  counter  with  their  closed  hands,  occasionally 
intermixing  three  or  four  oaths.  The  next  time  they  try 
to  impress  one,  instead  of  hammering  twice,  they  will  have 
to  hammer  three  times  and  give  a  special  collection  of 
selected  profanity.  Where  such  men  went  to  school  or  col- 
lege, my  thought  is  they  must  have  studied  two  languages, 
English  and  profane.  The  calm  man,  listening  calmly, 
answering  calmly,  remains  calm  when  the  ordeal  is  most 
trying. 

Poise !  The  essence  of  life  is  its  fulness,  and  one  can- 
not have  a  just  estimate  of  one's  limitations  without  poise. 

If  you  will  permit  me,  I  will  call  attention  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  kindness.  In  fact  this  should  have  been  the 
first  to  have  occupied  your  attention.  Advise  your  stu- 
dents to  be  kind  at  all  times.  One  should  begin  by  being 
kind  in  one's  home.  If  one  is  not  kind  in  one's  home,  kind 
to  the  women  and  children,  the  chances  are  he  cannot  be 
very  kind  to  the  employees  and  associates  who  are  about 
him  in  his  business  cares.  It  is  wonderful  what  comes  of 
kindness.  I  do  not  mean  kindness  that  will  protect  a  fel- 
low employee  in  a  dishonest  transaction.  So  many  em- 
ployees think  that  they  would  be  unkind  in  exposing  a  dis- 
honest man.  That  man  becomes  an  accomplice  of  the  dis- 
honest one.  His  duty  is  to  protect  the  property  of  his  em- 
ployer. If  anyone  is  treating  that  property  in  a  dishonest 
or  wasteful  way,  his  duty  is  to  inform  his  employers.  If 
he  does  not  protect  such  property,  lie  will  never  learn  how 
to  seriously  and  fully  protect  his  own  property  in  years  to 
come.  I  repeat — be  kind — be  kind  to  all,  but  especially  be 
kind  to  your  fellow  employee.  Tell  your  young  men  never 
to  overlook  an  old  friend,  no  matter  how  poor.  Give  that 
man  or  woman  as  much  or  more  time  than  you  would  a 


76         COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

rich  man.  It  will  give  one  better  poise  when  one  meets  the 
more  influential  person,  but  don't  do  it  on  that  account. 
Do  it  because  it  is  the  square  and  manly  thing  to  do. 

I  want  to  speak  briefly  of  sports  and  pleasures  and 
friends.  I  consider  them  all  necessary  in  the  making  of  a 
career.  Tell  me  that  it  is  useless  to  talk  about  sports  and 
pleasures  and  friends  in  this  connection,  and  I  ask  why  it 
is  that  so  many  men  fall  out  of  an  active  and  progressive 
life?  Because  of  lack  of  health.  The  man  who  makes  a 
success  must  be  a  healthy  man.  He  must  guard  his  health 
and  his  mind  as  principal  assets  are  guarded.  Some  men 
have  to  make  noble  struggles  against  ill  health  and  do  suc- 
ceed. As  already  stated  there  are  exceptions  to  every  rule. 
Tell  your  students  to  select  some  healthful  outdoor  sport. 
I  know  the  time  of  the  student  and  certainly  of  the  average 
employee  is  very  well  occupied,  but  nearly  all  may  have 
Saturday  afternoons  during  the  summer  at  least,  and  some 
all  day  Saturday.  Holidays  come  frequently.  Vacations 
come  along  and  there  is  a  week,  two  weeks,  or  more.  Some 
evenings  can  be  utilized  for  exercise.  Shall  the  time  be 
used  to  protect  and  conserve,  or  wasted  so  that  health  and 
usefulness  become  a  mere  shadow? 

Ah!  there  you  have  it,  the  hunting  after  irrational, 
money  absorbing,  and  trouble  producing  pleasures  holds 
many  a  young  man  out  of  a  successful  life  by  bringing  him 
in  contact  with  the  wrong  class  of  friends.  Tlie  kind  of 
pleasure  one  seeks,  the  kind  of  friends  one  makes  in  seek- 
ing that  pleasure,  will  put  one  in  a  class.  Just  as  low  as 
is  tlie  pleasure  one  seeks,  just  so  low  shall  be  the  friends 
one  finds.  Because  the  friends  you  make  are  seeking  you, 
and  the  friends  you  seek  want  you.  You  are  all  of  a  class. 
It  is  most  important,  this  question  of  friendship  and  pleas- 
ure; just  where  will  one  permit  oneself  to  be  placed  in 
one's  unoccupied  moments.  Sliall  it  be  in  a  church  or 
among  literary  people,  or  in  some  excellent  society  formed 
for  praiseworthy  work?  Shall  it  be  some  clean  entertain- 
ment or  wholesome  performance?  Or  sliall  it  be  along 
certain  back  streets  of  the  city  or  town,  or  other  disrepu- 
table places? 


COMMENCING   RIGHT  77 

Face  the  truth.  These  last  named,  hold  young  men 
down.  Tell  the  students  this  and  then  don't  be  afraid  to 
tell  them  again.  What  is  the  use  of  my  coming  here  and 
not  being  understood?  When  some  young  man  of  this 
splendid  audience  is  ten,  fifteen,  or  twenty  years  older  and 
says :  "I  heard  a  man  speaking  years  ago.  He  said  so  and 
so  about  success  in  life.  I  haven't  seen  it."  Let  such  a  one 
go  out  from  here  today  and  in  the  coming  week  or  month  or 
year  seek  and  find  temporary  pleasure  in  channels  which 
would  very  much  shock  those  who  love  him  if  they  knew, 
yet  he  may  express  himself  as  above  and  wonder  in  the 
years  to  come  why  success  did  not  come.  If  he  exerts  him- 
self for  pleasure  of  a  questionable  kind,  he  must  not  com- 
plain if  richness  of  character  and  success  do  not  come. 
Don't  lose  your  own  friendship.  The  doing  of  certain 
things,  I  repeat,  casts  a  career,  and  one  may  never  come  to 
know  the  sweet  pleasures  of  a  higher  life  which  others 
have  sought,  found  and  lived  unto  good  old  age,  with  all 
the  brightness  and  beauty  that  life  can  give.  My  friends, 
start  your  students  right  on  this  wonderful  mission  of  life. 
I  care  not  what  the  vocation,  he  is  lost  unless  he  commences 
right  or  will  get  right  soon  after  he  finds  himself  wrong. 

Let  me  give  you  an  example  of  this  matter  of  friend- 
ship. A  young  man  worked  in  a  machine  shop  in  the 
city.  He  was  just  a  skilled  workman.  The  proprietor  had 
borrowed  ten  thousand  dollars  upon  the  shop  as  collateral. 
The  friend  who  loaned  the  money  came  to  the  shop  one  day 
to  have  some  intricate  device  repaired.  He  was  referred  to 
this  young  man  and  requested  to  explain  it  to  him.  He 
found  the  young  man  very  careful  and  methodical.  The 
workman  did  not  know  he  was  talking  to  a  friend  of  tlie 
proprietor.  He  simply  took  up  the  work  as  a  bright,  earnest 
employee  would.  The  gentleman  came  several  times  dur- 
ing the  week  or  two  weeks  in  order  to  get  the  repairs 
right.  He  formed  a  liking  for  the  young  man.  One  day 
he  asked  if  he  attended  church.  The  answer  was  "he  did 
not."  "How  would  you  like  to  go?"  "I  would  like  to  go 
if  any  one  cared  enough  to  ask  me."    "Well,  I'll  ask  you." 


78        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND   BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

He  became  a  frequent  attendant.  A  short  time  after,  the 
gentleman  had  to  take  over  the  shop  because  the  proprie- 
tor had  been  going  wrong  and  could  not  pay  the  debt.  He 
had  an  "elephant  on  his  hands"  and  seemed  to  be  out  a 
large  part  of  his  loan,  but  he  thought  of  the  young  man. 
The  young  man  had  saved  three  hundred  dollars.  He  was 
a  saving  chap,  hoping  for  an  opportunity.  The  man  said: 
"that  is  all  right.  I  will  sell  you  half  of  this  shop,  take 
your  three  hundred  dollars"  (he  wanted  his  three  hundred 
dollars  so  as  to  have  the  young  fellow  feel  a  real  money 
interest)  "and  you  can  pay  the  rest  of  it  out  of  your 
profits."  The  young  man  was  delighted.  The  shop  was* 
taken  over.  That  was  about  five  years  ago.  The  young 
man  is  worth  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  today,  and 
my  judgment  is  it  will  not  be  long  before  his  property  can 
be  estimated  at  a  million.  He  gained  the  confidence  of  his 
new-made  friend,  and  held  that  confidence  right  through. 

On  the  other  side,  the  following  is  interesting  because 
it  is  the  story  of  a  young  man  who  recently  lost  his  posi- 
tion and  who  has  the  courage  to  acknowledge  the  real 
reason  of  his  failure.    He  says: 

"I  am  a  young  man,  born  as  are  the  majority.  I  have 
had  the  advantages  of  a  college  education  and  yet  at  the 
end  of  eight  years  of  business  experience,  with  unlimited 
opportunities,  I  look  the  past  squarely  in  the  face  and 
discover  that  I  am  a  failure.  I  have  no  apologies  to  offer. 
I  had  opportunity.  I  did  not  grasp  it.  I  had  acquaintance 
with  tlio  head  of  tlie  corporation.  I  did  not  carry  myself 
in  a  manner  to  merit  tlie  friendly  interest  of  that  person.  I 
started  out  with  the  ambition  of  youth.  I  rose  from  one 
position  to  another,  but  in  the  two  years  just  passed  I 
have  stood  still,  even  lost  ground.  Why?  Because  I  had 
no  system  in  my  own  life.  Instead  of  leading,  I  followed. 
I  did  as  the  ordinary  man  does.  I  did  not  eat  or  sleep 
regularly  and  lowered  my  pliysical  energy,  I  sought  pleas- 
ures tliat  were  degrading  and  dulled  my  intellect.  Smok- 
ing made  me  nervous,  yet  I  smoked  because  other  fellows 
smoked ;  drinking  caused  headaches,  yet  I  drank  'for  com- 


COMMENCING   EIGHT  79 

pany's  sake.'  I  did  nothing  to  excess,  and  there  are  many 
■<<till  to  say  I  am  a  likely  young  fellow.  But  I  know  I  am 
a  failure.  I  have  dropped  back  into  the  ranks.  I  did  as 
the  majority  do.  It  is  the  minority  who  rule.  I  may  take 
a  new  hold.  I  have  tried,  but  my  brain  seems  to  be  domi- 
nated by  a  greater  lower  force.  I  see  this,  but  as  yet  am 
powerless  to  prevent  its  action."  Ah,  my  friends,  keep 
your  brain  the  ruling  power. 

There  are  times  when  some  people  tell  others  to  be 
honest.  It  seems  so  trite  and  commonplace  that  one 
hardly  feels  today  like  taking  the  time.  It  is  like  the  old 
admonition  that  you  so  often  hear,  not  to  keep  one's  eye 
on  the  clock  when  it  is  coming  near  to  the  time  when  work 
is  over.  These  admonitions  are  so  old  and  so  true  that 
everyone  has  heard  them.  But  this  advice  would  not  be 
used  so  often  if  it  were  not  so  very  true.  Take  honesty 
for  example.  Here  you  have  an  absolute  essential  in  per- 
manent satisfying  success.  There  are  people  who  try  to 
be  honest  and  cannot.  They  are  weak.  They  cannot  ex- 
plain their  own  weakness.  Here,  for  example,  is  an  op- 
portunity where  fifty  cents  or  a  dollar  can  be  dishonestly 
retained.  No  one  will  ever  know  the  difference.  The 
chance  is  taken,  just  once,  you  know.  Whenever  that  is 
done  there  is  an  uneven  mark  placed  in  the  structure  of 
integrity.  If  it  is  a  young  man,  he  wonders  in  the  future 
years  why  bankers  will  not  loan  him  five  thousand  dollars 
when  Jones  can  borrow  ten  or  twenty  thousand  on  less 
capital  invested.  It  was  not  only  fifty  cents,  because  where 
it  will  only  be  that  amount  today,  unless  stopped,  it  will  be 
twenty  dollars  at  another  time,  thirty  at  another.  It  will 
not  stop  at  that.  There  will  be  other  forms  of  deception. 
Why  does  this  act  become  so  great  an  injury? 

One  of  the  essentials  in  business  success  is  to  have  the 
confidence  of  the  business  world,  your  associates,  not  only 
bankers,  but  business  and  professional  men.  In  times  of 
industrial  and  financial  depressions,  and  with  all  our 
commercial  progress  these  come  frequently,  it  is  the  name, 
it  is  the  man  who  commands  confidence  and  credit  quite 


80         COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND   BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

as  much,  yes,  more  than  assets.  I  have  known  men  to  get 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  at  such  times,  when 
others  with  more  wealth  were  refused.  Why?  It  was  not 
only  to  save  them  and  their  business,  but  because  they 
were  known  as  men  who  would  meet  their  obligations 
honestly  to  the  last  dollar  of  their  possessions,  and  who 
would  not  seek  some  subterfuge  to  save  themselves  at  the 
expense  of  others. 

Good  reason  did  I  have  for  believing  Pierpont  Morgan 
in  his  testimony  before  the  Pujo  Commission  when  he  sur- 
prised all  by  testifying  that  he  had  given  men  checks  for 
one  million  dollars  on  nothing  but  their  notes  when  he 
knew  they  were  down  and  out  for  the  time  being,  while 
in  the  same  period  he  refused  like  amounts  to  other  men 
with  millions  of  collaterals. 

One  may  intend  to  be  an  honest  man  or  woman.  An 
honest  man  is  always  an  agreeable  spectacle,  but  passive 
honesty  is  not  enough.  No  man  can  find  true  success  un- 
less by  his  example  he  gains  prestige  for  himself  by  leading 
others,  less  strong,  to  see  the  right  way.  One  has  a  good 
conscience,  but  that  conscience  is  sadly  out  of  repair  and 
of  little  avail  to  the  society  of  which  you  and  yours  are 
a  part  when  it  is  not  exerted  with  benefit  to  others.  One's, 
influence  will  be  for  good  or  for  bad.  There  is  no  middle 
ground.  You  have  heard  of  the  jelly-fish.  The  jelly-fish 
has  no  backbone  or  bone  of  any  kind.  It  can  flop  and 
flounder  and  go  around,  but  it  cannot  go  straight  against 
a  strong  or  weak  current  except  by  chance.  In  the  matter 
of  all-around  integi'it}^,  those  who  in  life  occupy  middle 
ground  can  be  likened  to  a  jelly-fisli.  The  very  position — 
middle  ground — indicates  a  trimmer,  a  compromiser  with 
good  or  evil.  Therefore  strive  with  your  students  to  avoid 
negative  virtue.  Let  one's  virtue  be  positive,  strenuous  if 
you  will,  and  one  will  be  surprised  at  the  lessening  number 
of  temptations,  and  the  ease  and  the  pleasure  with  which 
you  turn  aside  from  the  ordinary  pitfalls  which  lead  ta 
failure. 


COMMENCING  RIGHT  81 

If  we  cultivate  right  thinking,  right  speaking,  right 
doing,  other  matters  will  arrange  themselves  in  the  right 
way  and  one  will  commence  right.  To  be  president,  or 
one  of  the  leading  officials  of  a  bank,  to  be  head  or  one  of 
the  leading  officials  of  a  great  business  institution,  to  be 
a  money  king,  to  be  a  great  statesman,  to  be  a  famed  law- 
yer, to  be  a  farmer  of  vast  estates,  if  one  may  have  these 
or  other  positions,  and  with  honor  move  among  men,  then 
one's  heart  should  be  light  and  contentment  rule.  But 
how  many  gain  one  at  the  loss  of  the  other,  and  then 
money,  notoriety  (sometimes  called  fame)  count  little 
against  the  loss  of  self-respect  and  position  in  society.  I 
assure  you  that  many  climb  the  giddy  mountains  of  suc- 
cess by  other  than  the  straight  path,  to  see  for  themselves 
that  while  there's  plenty  of  excitement,  there  is  nothing 
in  it  after  all. 

The  smaller  mountains  of  success,  safely  climbed^ 
contain  the  larger  happiness ;  a  little  farm,  or  business,  or 
good  position,  a  life  of  work,  good  health,  a  home  and 
children,  are  things  more  to  be  desired  than  such  larger 
fruit,  gathered  with  risk  of  character.  The  happiest  man 
should  be  he  who  has  just  enough  to  make  him  comfortable 
and  respectable,  who  is  always  busy,  who  loves  his  home 
and  who  would  rather  be  right  than  President.  While  this 
is  recognized  as  truth  by  philosophers  of  all  ages,  it  does 
not  stop  the  venturesome  spirits  from  day  dreams  of  future 
greatness.  Hence  we  deal  with  life  as  we  find  it.  We 
tell  of  the  careers  of  those  who  win  and  point  the  manifold 
ways  to  avoid  the  careers  of  tliose  who  fall,  who  drop  by 
the  way  with  bodies  enfeebled  by  over-study,  under-fed, 
or  who  are  lost  amidst  the  fogs  of  commercial  immorality 
or  other  misfortune.  In  other  words,  it  is  now  up  to  the 
judgment  that  one  must  use  in  the  little  or  big  things  in 
life. 

What  a  young  man  does  in  nearby  todays,  in  all  proba- 
bility lie  will  very  likely  do  on  a  larger  or  smaller  scale 
in  years  to  come.  The  important  tiling  after  getting 
money  and  position  is  to  liold  them.     Statistics  show  tliat 


82        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

of  the  hundred  men  who  start  in  business  but  five  succeed, 
and  of  the  five  who  succeed,  but  one  is  able  to  hold  the 
money  for  a  period  longer  than  twenty  years.  The  trou- 
ble is  in  these  days  especially,  with  a  country  so  prosperous 
as  ours,  where  we  waste  more  than  France  consumes,  that 
the  laborer  is  trying  to  live  like  the  mechanic ;  the  mechanic 
is  trying  to  live  like  the  merchant;  the  merchant  is  trying 
to  live  like  a  prince.  There  is  an  unreal  inflation  and 
much  that  is  mercenary  about  it  all  that  will  compel  the 
people  of  the  country  to  suffer  in  years  to  come.  The 
question  is  who  is  going  to  be  caught  in  the  maelstrom,  or 
whether  during  the  coming  months  or  years  one  will  find 
ways  and  means  of  living  within  one's  income,  saving  a 
little  every  day  and  training  right. 

Let  me  suggest  before  concluding  that  one  should 
study  as  one  goes  along  all  through  life.  A  day  should  not 
be  allowed  to  go  by  without  acquiring  some  bit  of  knowl- 
edge. One  may  never  know  when  one  may  want  to  use  it. 
One  will  never  know  how  fast  that  bit  of  knowledge  ac- 
quired today  will  accumulate  if  one  trains  eye  and  brain 
to  be  receptive.  They  say  of  Gladstone  that  he  always 
carried  a  little  book  in  his  pocket  lest  an  unexpected 
moment  should  be  wasted.  If  an  intellectual  genius  like 
Gladstone  would  do  that,  how  much  more  ready  should  we 
of  ordinary  ability  be,  to  do  likewise. 

Mr.  President,  I  congratulate  the  University  of  Illi- 
nois on  this  beautiful  new  building,  dedicated  to  so  worthy 
an  object,  giving  to  it,  as  it  does,  opportunities  to  broaden, 
quicken  and  make  more  practical  the  lives  of  many  stu- 
dents. I  congratulate  the  young  men  and  women  who  will 
have  these  opportunities  and  trust  that  their  knowledge 
may  lead  all  the  strcmger  toward  tliat  real  basis  of  a 
nation's  glory,  character  and  strength — the  happiness  and 
purity  of  American  homes. 

I  congratulate  the  president,  oflScials,  and  faculty  of 
tills  splendid  institution  of  learning,  not  only  for  the 
results  of  tlieir  many  years  of  work,  but  also  because  you 
are  men  and  women  of  that  part  of  life's  work  of  which  it 


COMMENCING  RIGHT  83 

can  truly  be  said,  there  is  no  nobler  calling  in  this  free, 
progressive  nation,  moving  forward  under  education  and 
law. 

Now,  friends,  I  know  not  if  to  you  there  is  value  in 
my  remarks  today.  Let  me  hope  for  the  best,  however, 
and  conclude  with  Kipling's  well-known  words,  which  are 
applicable  to  all : 

"If  you  can  keep  your  head  when  all  about  you 

Are  losing  theirs  and  blaming  it  on  you ; 

If  you  can  trust  yourself  when  all  men  doubt  you, 

But  make  allowance  for  their  doubting  too; 

If  you  can  fill  the  unforgiving  minute 

With  sixty  seconds  of  distance  run. 

Yours  is  the  earth  and  everything  that's  in  it. 

And — which  is  more — ^you'll  be  a  man,  my  son." 


The  Relation  of  a  School  of  Commerce  to  the  Practi- 
cal Problems  of  Business 

Leon  C.  Marshall 
Dean  of  College  of  Commerce  and  Administration,  University  of  Chicago 

I.    The  Issues  Stated 

It  has  long  been  accepted  that  it  is  possible  to  train 
men  for  the  routine  tasks  of  business — for  the  positions 
requiring  automatic  brain  work  as  differentiated  from  re- 
sponsible brain  work.  If  our  colleges  of  commerce  were 
to  set  themselves  to  the  task  of  supplying  candidates  for 
such  positions,  some  persons  might  question  the  utility  of 
such  an  expenditure  of  social  energy,  but  very  few  would 
doubt  its  possibility  of  success.  It  has  not  been  so  univer- 
sally accepted  that  it  is  possible  to  train  men  for  the  re- 
sponsible positions  of  industry — for  those  executive  posi- 
tions whose  occupants  are  called  upon  to  settle  the  great 
questions  of  business  policy.  When  our  colleges  of  com- 
merce speak  hopefully  of  their  students  as  possible  future 
candidates  for  these  responsible  positions,  men  listen 
patiently,  but  not  always  soberly. 

The  topic  assigned  me,  forming  as  it  does  a  part  of  a 
conference  upon  the  relation  of  commercial  and  industrial 
education  to  individual  business  success,  obviously  raises 
both  these  issues.  Will  the  training  of  your  boy  and  mine 
in  the  modern  university  school  of  commerce  cause  him  to 
be  a  more  successful  business  man,  either  as  a  subordinate 
or  as  a  cliief,  than  he  would  otherwise  have  been?  Will 
his  collegiate  training  be  worth  more  than  four  years  of 
business  training  when  he  faces  the  practical  problems  of 
business  life?  Will  that  training  justify  itself  through 
greater  ability  to  grasp  general  principles  and  greater 
power  to  master  details?  Will  he  be  more  keen,  alert,  and 
open-minded?    Will  he  have  more  poise,  initiative,  balance 

84 


SCHOOL   OF   COMMERCE   AND   BUSINESS   PROBLEMS         85 

and  judgment?  Are  the  subjects  taught  in  the  colleges  of 
commerce  worth  while?  Are  the  teachers  worth  while? 
Is  the  administration  of  these  colleges  such  as  to  give  us 
confidence  in  tlieir  future?  These  are  the  questions  which 
are  being  asked  concerning  the  schools  of  business  adminis- 
tration of  the  day.  They  are  right  and  proper  questions. 
True,  the  case  of  the  college  of  commerce  by  no  means 
rests  solely  upon  these  considerations  of  individual  busi- 
ness success.  It  is  conceivable  that  a  failure  to  promote 
such  success  might  be  more  than  offset  by  a  contribution 
to  public  and  private  welfare  in  another  form.  Be  this  as 
it  may,  the  question  of  the  contribution  to  business  success 
is  a  legitimate  one,  and  one  that  the  college  of  commerce 
should  and  must  answer. 

Fortunately  for  the  college  of  commerce,  men  have 
become  reasonable  in  their  demands  upon  that  institution. 
Today,  no  one  holds  the  college  responsible  for  the  failure 
of  its  graduate  who  had  no  aptitude  for  any  business  pro- 
fession, whatever  other  admirable  qualities  he  may  have 
possessed.  Today,  the  fact  that  Mr.  X,  innocent  of  college 
training  but  with  remarkable  aptitude  for  business,  makes 
a  startling  success,  while  Mr.  Y,  college  trained  but  with 
only  average  ability  is  one  of  Mr.  X's  employees,  is  not 
considered  valid  proof  of  the  futility  of  a  college  training. 
It  is  recognized  that  the  real  questions  are:  "Is  Mr.  Y 
doing  better  than  he  would  have  done  without  a  college 
training?"  "Is  Mr.  X  doing  as  well  as  he  would  have  done 
had  he  taken  the  course  in  commerce?"  Today,  no  college 
of  commerce  is  expected  to  turn  out  a  man  fitted  at  once 
to  become  the  general  manager  of  a  billion-dollar  corpora- 
tion, or  furnished  with  ready-made  answers  to  all  the 
problems  of  business  administration.  The  newly-fledged 
graduate  of  the  law  school  is  not  expected  to  step  into  the 
position  of  chief  justice;  he  is  not  supposed  to  have  ripe 
judgment,  vast  experience,  or  omniscience.  The  graduate 
of  the  medical  school  must  serve  a  long  apprenticeship 
before  he  can  be  trusted  with  even  simple  cases.  The  gradu- 
ate of  a  college  of  education  is  not  presumed  to  be  fitted  by 


86        COMMBECIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

that  fact  to  become  at  once  the  president  of  a  great  state 
university.  So  also  with  the  colleges  of  commerce.  The 
beardless  boy  graduate  is  and  can  be  nothing  but  an  ap- 
prentice, a  beginner,  a  blunderer,  it  may  be.  The  years 
must  widen  him;  experience  must  ripen  him;  failures 
must  chasten  him.  The  question  at  issue  is  whether  the 
college  of  commerce  has  given  him  anything  worth  while 
to  be  widened,  ripened,  and  chastened. 

II.    The  Service  of  the  College  of  Commerce 

In  attempting  to  answer  that  question  affirmatively  I 
shall  not  appeal  to  the  experience  of  Germany,  although 
it  is  everywhere  admitted  that  the  German  college  of  com- 
merce is  playing  an  important  part  in  the  commercial  and 
industrial  expansion  of  that  empire,  and  that  the  com- 
mercial college  has  there  justified  itself  as  a  contributor 
to  individual  business  success;  I  shall  not  appeal  to  the 
great  increase  in  the  proportion  of  our  college  graduates 
who  enter  business  pursuits  nor  to  the  rapid  growth  of  our 
colleges  of  commerce  to  meet  that  situation;  I  shall  not 
appeal  to  the  various  recent  statistical  compilations  which 
seem  to  indicate  that  the  four  years  training  of  our  present 
day  college  of  commerce  is  a  most  profitable  investment, 
those  who  have  made  the  investment  advancing  consider- 
ably more  rapidly  than  those  who  have  entered  business 
without  the  preliminary  training;  I  shall  not  appeal  to 
the  testimony  which  I  myself  have  seen  of  hundreds  of 
graduates  who  have  written  back  concerning  the  merits 
and  demerits  of  their  collegiate  training.  These  facts 
taken  together  do  make  a  strong  presumptive  case.  Surely 
German  experience  must  count  for  something  even  in 
American  conditions;  surely  the  great  present  demand  for 
business  training  is  not  wholly  or  even  largely  a  demand  by 
foolish  persons;  surely  those  who  have  tnkeu  the  training 
of  tlie  college  of  commerce  and  have  tested  that  training  in 
actual  business  should  be  in  some  proper  position  to  esti- 
mate its  value.  These  facts  may,  however,  be  waived  in 
favor  of  two  general  considerations  which  are  in  them- 


SCHOOL   OF    COMMERCE   AND   BUSINESS   PROBLEMS         87 

selves  sufficiently  strong  to  establish  the  case  of  the  college 
of  commerce.  First,  some  agency,  and  it  may  well  be  the 
college  of  commerce,  must  supply  breadth  of  view  for  sub- 
ordinates in  modern  business  organization.  Second,  some 
agency,  and  it  may  well  be  the  college  of  commerce,  must 
supply  the  training  in  flexible  judgment  which  our  tremen- 
dous and  rapidly  clianging  industrial  organization  de- 
mands of  its  master  minds. 

If  there  is  any  one  cry  going  up  from  the  business 
of  today,  it  is  that  it  is  difficult  to  secure  men  of  breadth 
of  view  for  the  important  subordinate  positions.  It  would 
be  strange  if  it  were  otherwise.  Modern  industry  is  tre- 
mendously efficient  in  developing  promptness,  energy, 
accuracy,  and  initiative,  but  it  has  become  so  specialized 
that  narrowness  of  view  is  an  ever  present  pitfall,  and  it 
has  become  so  intense  that  subordinates  are  drawn  as  by 
a  magnet  to  that  pitfall.  The  apprentice  system  formerly 
saved  the  subordinate,  but  that  system  has  broken  down 
in  almost  all  industries,  and  even  if  other  conditions 
should  permit  its  restoration,  it  could  not  be  efficient  in 
these  days  of  the  world  market.  If  capable  subordinates 
are  to  be  secured,  individual  businesses  must  either  set  up 
their  own  training  schools  or  must  rely  on  some  outside 
agency  to  give  men  a  broad  horizon  to  enable  them  to 
see  the  relationship  of  their  specialized  tasks  to  the  busi- 
ness as  a  whole  and  the  relationship  of  their  business  to 
the  rest  of  organized  society.  In  point  of  fact,  botli  of 
these  educative  agencies  are  at  work.  It  is  obvious,  how- 
ever, that  only  the  larger  business  houses  can  afford  tlieir 
own  training  schools,  and  even  of  these  the  good  old  saying 
holds  true.  It  is  not  always  the  person  whose  nose  is 
closest  to  the  grindstone  who  gets  the  most  correct  per- 
spective concerning  the  motive  forces  turning  the  wheel. 
This  perspective  concerning  the  motive  forces  of  modern 
industry  and  concerning  the  relationship  of  tasks,  the 
college  of  commerce  is  in  a  position  to  give.  Intimate  as 
its  connection  with  the  concrete  issues  and  smothering 
details  of  modern  business,  it  is  sufficiently  remote  and 


88         COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

sufficiently  aware  of  its  true  functions  to  maintain  a  sense 
of  proportion.  If  the  testimony  of  those  who  have  taken 
advantage  of  its  training  is  to  be  believed,  it  has  rendered 
good  service  in  this  particular. 

But  the  problems  of  the  subordinate  are  often  routine 
problems.  Can  the  college  of  commerce  aid  in  the  solution 
of  questions  of  business  policy?  Can  it  render  any  serv- 
ice to  those  who  are  to  fill  the  executive  positions  of  mod- 
ern industry?  Concerning  this  issue,  there  is  much  popu- 
lar misapprehension.  It  is  commonly  assumed  that  the 
qualities  of  the  subordinate  and  of  the  chief  are  mutually 
exclusive — that  each  of  these  agents  in  modern  industry- 
is  sui  generis.  Quite  the  contrary  is  the  real  situation. 
The  qualities  of  the  successful  chief  are  likely  to  be  the 
qualities  of  the  good  subordinate  plus  that  divine  afflatus, 
judgment.  It  follows  that  the  systems  of  training  for  the 
two  kinds  of  position  should  not  be  mutually  exclusive. 
The  one  should  be  the  other,  plus.  I  am  aware  that  there 
is  a  generally  accepted  dictum  to  the  effect  that  executives 
are  born,  not  made.  This  should  prove  a  precious  thought 
to  the  executive.  Only  the  Omnipotent  could  produce  an- 
other like  him.  Man's  efforts  would  be  futile.  The  ele- 
ment of  truth  in  this  dictum  is  the  commonplace  fact  that 
a  man  of  great  natural  ability  will  go  farther  than  the  man 
of  limited  capacity,  other  things  being  equal.  But  even 
the  man  of  the  most  superb  natural  endowment  must  have 
experience.  There  is  no  substitute,  and  experience  must 
be  gained  in  just  two  ways.  One  may  profit  by  his  own 
experience  or  one  may  profit  by  the  experience  of  others. 
It  is  this  experience  of  others  which  the  college  of  com- 
merce with  its  equipment  for  collecting  data,  drawing 
generalizations,  and  imparting  results,  is  fitted  to  give. 
Accordingly,  the  question  is  not  "Can  the  college  give 
something  worth  four  years'  experience?"  The  real  ques- 
tion is  "Is  it  worth  wliilo  to  spend  four  years  studying 
the  experience  of  others,  constantly  supplementing  and 
checking  tlie  results  with  your  own  experience?'' 

But  tliis  is  not  the  full  case  of  the  college  of  com- 
merce in  its  relation  to  the  functions  of  the  executive.    The 


SCHOOL   OF    COMMERCE    AND    BUSINESS    PROBLEMS         89 

foregoing  statements  have  their  most  precise  application 
to  what  we  call  the  problems  of  business  as  such.  Today 
we  are  realizing  that  this  is  only  one  aspect  of  the  work 
of  the  executive.  Business  is  not  merely  business.  It  is 
a  feature  of  modern  social  development;  it  is  a  device  of 
men  living  in  organized  society ;  it  is  to  be  judged  by  stand- 
ards of  social  utility.  All  of  us  recognize  that  we  have 
fallen  on  troublous — often  disheartening — times.  Some 
of  us  seem  to  fear  that  all  society  has  gone  mad.  It  has 
not.  It  merely  lacks  co-ordination.  It  is  merely  afflicted 
with  St.  Vitus'  dance.  This  turmoil  around  us  has  a  sim- 
ple origin.  Poorly  guided,  inarticulate  democracy  is  striv- 
ing to  guarantee  that  individual  business  success  shall  be 
a  reward  for  real  service  to  society — a  most  commendable 
goal,  whatever  we  may  think  of  society's  present  attempts 
to  attain  it.  Clearly  the  future  business  executive  must 
deal  with  social  forces.  He  must  assume  a  more  responsi- 
ble position  in  relation  to  groping  democracy.  No  mere 
rule  of  thumb  will  suffice;  he  must  have  that  attitude  of 
mind  which  will  lead  to  flexible  statesman-like  judgments, 
founded  on  fact,  and  practical  in  application.  Here  the 
college  of  commerce,  if  properly  conducted,  can  and  does 
render  another  service.  It  takes  the  boy  at  just  his  forma- 
tive period,  makes  him  critical  of  rules  of  thumb,  makes 
him  see  beyond  the  tasks  of  the  moment,  shows  him  how 
his  business  is  related  to  other  businesses,  and  how  all 
business  is  related  to  society,  lets  him  see  the  genetic 
development  of  society — in  brief,  it  aids  in  conferring  that 
breadth  of  view  which  alone  can  make  possible  sane,  social 
judgments.  Let  it  not  be  supposed  all  this  is  remote  from 
individual  business  success.  It  will  be  the  very  essence 
of  individual  business  success  in  the  future. 

III.    The  Future  of  Colleges  of  Commerce 

If  the  foregoing  statements  contain  any  considerable 
proportion  of  truth,  it  follows  that  the  college  of  com- 
merce— even  the  one  of  today — may  contribute  to  the  busi- 
ness success  of  both  the  subordinate  and  the  master  mind, 


90        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

but  its  work  of  today  is  puerile  compared  with  its  oppor- 
tunity for  the  future.  The  present-day  school  of  business 
administration,  experimenting  in  every  direction,  handi- 
capped in  many  particulars  by  academic  tradition,  forced 
to  develop  courses  and  instructors  when  the  material  and 
means  are  sadly  lacking,  is  not  unlike  the  early  railroad 
with  its  rickety  track  reaching  out  into  the  boundless 
prairies,  its  traditions  of  the  dirt  road  and  canal,  its  work- 
ing staff  of  blacksmiths,  farm-hands,  and  stage-coach  driv- 
ers. May  the  parallel  continue  in  the  later  history  !  And 
it  will  continue  if  the  business  community  will  lend  its  co- 
operation— the  co-operation  of  hand  and  brain  being  more 
needed  than  that  of  the  purse.  In  the  first  place,  we  need 
help  in  securing  clinical  facilities.  It  matters  little  whether 
this  clinic  is  owned  by  the  college  or  by  a  private  business 
practitioner  or  by  the  public.  In  some  way,  the  clinic 
must  be  secured  and  the  day  must  come  when  the  charge 
— all  too  apt  under  present  conditions — "the  college 
graduate,  a  business  tyro,  a  problem  of  adjustment,"  shall 
be  at  least  no  more  applicable  than  it  is  to  the  graduate 
entering  medical  practice.  In  the  second  place,  we  need 
more  help  in  the  instructing  staff — again  possibly  the  kind 
of  assistance  given  in  medical  training.  We  need  men  with 
the  vast  experience  of  our  modern  business  executives, 
with  the  professional  pride  of  our  lawyers  and  physicians, 
with  a  willingness  to  make  sacrifices  for  the  coming  genera- 
tion of  business  men  to  supplement  and  enrich  our  formal 
instruction.  A  beginning  has  been  made,  but  only  a  be- 
ginning. In  the  third  place,  we  need  help  in  freeing  our- 
selves from  certain  hampering  academic  traditions.  Four 
years  of  gentlemanly  existence  will  not  train  for  business; 
a  machine  curriculum  will  not  develop  individuality  and 
resourcefulness;  indifferent  instruction  will  not  produce 
a  generation  of  problem  solvers,  and  problem  solvers  busi- 
ness men  must  be.  Here  also  we  have  made  a  beginning, 
but  much,  very  much  remains  to  be  done.  Finally,  we  need 
assistance  in  developing  research.  Our  knowledge  of  busi- 
ness practices  and  principles  must  be  made  more  precise, 


SCHOOL   OF   COMMERCE   AND    BUSINESS   PROBLEMS         91 

our  courses  of  instruction  must  become  more  analytical. 
We  must  secure  for  business  education  something  similar 
to  the  splendid  research  results  in  agriculture  and  pre- 
ventive medicine.  Opportunity  is  abundant;  attainment 
is  feasible. 

These  are  the  regrets  which  the  college  of  commerce, 
eager  to  be  of  greater  service,  makes  of  the  business  com- 
munity: research  facilities,  so  that  our  students  and  the 
community  may  have  accurate,  timely,  stimulating,  scien- 
tific material;  an  adequate  system  of  instruction,  so  that 
this  material  may  become  really  available;  laboratory  and 
clinical  facilities  so  that  we  may  have  a  proper  adjustment 
between  theory  and  practice ;  wholesome  traditions  so  that 
we  may  tlie  more  readily  secure  high  attainment  and  real 
efficiency.  That  these  will  be  forthcoming — that  they  are 
forthcoming — such  events  as  this  very  conference,  held  on 
such  an  occasion,  prove  beyond  question.  They  spell  oppor- 
tunity— opportunity  to  serve  society,  opportunity  to  con- 
tribute to  the  business  success  of  the  individual  willing  to 
serve  society — and  the  college  of  commerce  gladly  accepts 
the  challenge  of  opportunity. 


The   Questionnaire  of   the   Illinois   Manufacturers'' 

Association  on  College  Courses  in  Business 

Administration^ 

Julius  W.  Hegeler,  Chairman,  W.  E.  Clow,  John  E.  Wilder 
Committee  on  Education 

The  questionnaire  which  the  Committee  on  Education 
of  the  Illinois  Manufacturers'  Association  circulated 
among  the  members  of  the  Association  was  designed  to 
determine  the  attitude  of  the  membership  toward  univer- 
sity courses  in  business  administration  and  to  secure  sug- 
gestions concerning  the  nature  of  the  courses  to  be  offered. 

Of  the  eighty-two  firms  making  reply  the  addresses  of 
but  seventy-two  can  now  be  determined.  Three  answers 
were  received  from  outside  the  state.  Of  the  remaining 
sixty-nine  houses  sixty  are  located  in  Chicago  and  three 
in  Peoria,  while  replies  were  received  from  one  firm  in 
each  of  the  following  cities :  Aurora,  Clyde,  Decatur,  East 
St.  Louis,  Harvey,  and  Quincy. 

The  types  of  business  engaged  in  by  those  making 
reply  are  diverse,  including  automobile,  milling,  electric, 
packing,  soap,  and  tack  companies.  The  sizes  range  from 
small  to  large,  the  latter  having  tlie  larger  proportionate 
representation. 

Five  questions  were  proposed  in  the  questionnaire. 
The  number  of  definite  answers  to  the  first  and  second 
questions  is  seventy,  to  the  third  sixty,  to  the  fourth  forty- 
three,  to  the  fifth  forty-five. 

The  first  question  is  as  follows:  What  education  do 
we  want  young  men  to  have  to  whom  we  may  look  in  time 
to  improve  the  organization  of  our  office  staff,  increase  its 
efficiency,  and  reduce  its  cost?    The  replies  to  this  ques- 

^The  following  report,  based  on  the  data  gathered  by  the  Committee 
on  Education,  was  prepared  and  presented  at  the  conference  by  Charles 
L.  Stewart,  Research  Assistant  in  Economics,  University  of  Illinois. 

92 


QUESTIONNAIRE  ON  COURSES  IN  BUSINESS  93 

tion  show  the  following  distribution  of  views  as  to  the 
educational  needs  of  the  office  force: 

No   educational    requirement 1 

Grammar  or  common  school 15 

Continuation  school  1 

High  school,  without  mention  of  business  courses 13 

High  school,  with  emphasis  on  business  courses 7 

High  school,  supplemented  by  business  college 3 

Business  college   1 

General  university  course,  without  mention  of  courses  in  business 

administration    5 

Special  university  courses  along  business  lines 24 

A  number  of  those  favoring  scanty  education  show 
a  more  or  less  rabid  prejudice  against  higher  education, 
while  those  favoring  secondary  education  frequently  refer 
to  the  desirability  of  still  higher  training.  It  will  be  seen 
that  the  number  favoring  special  university  training  along 
the  lines  of  business  administration  outnumber  any  other 
single  class  and  constitute  thirty-four  per  cent  of  the  num- 
ber giving  specific  answers  as  compared  with  twenty-four 
per  cent  who  favor  nothing  above  the  common  schools, 
twenty-eight  per  cent  who  emphasize  general  high-school 
training,  scarcely  six  per  cent  requiring  business-college 
training,  and  seven  per  cent  who  insist  on  a  broad  cultural 
college  course. 

The  returns  seem  to  indicate  the  comparative  failure 
of  the  business  college  to  equip  men  for  the  larger  needs 
of  business  offices.  They  show,  further,  the  employers' 
insistence  on  the  ability  to  write  legibly  and  to  use  good 
English.  The  evidence  implies  a  strong  expectation  that 
the  university  business-administration  courses  will  produce 
more  expert  office  help. 

Question  number  two  is  as  follows:  What  kind  of 
training  should  young  men  have  whom  we  may  expect  to 
improve  our  accounting  systems,  perliaps  introduce  sys- 
tems of  cost  accounting  that  will  make  it  easier  to  appor- 
tion costs  and  profits,  and  to  determine  what  parts  of  our 
organization  pay  and  what  do  not?     So  far  as  could  be 


94        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

determined  the  distribution  of  views  as  to  the  training 
needed  for  this  work  is  as  follows : 

Business  college   5 

High  school  or  business  college 1 

High  school,  without  mention  of  specific  courses 2 

High  school,  with  emphasis  on  manual  and  mechanical  training. . .  2 

General  university  course 3 

Engineering,  without  mention  of  business  courses 2 

Engineering,  with  mention  of  business  courses 2 

Special  university  training,  without  mention  of  business  courses. .  15 

Special  university  training,  with  mention  of  business  courses 12 

University  or  apprenticeship 1 

Practical  experience,  without  mention  of  any  educational  require- 
ment     14 

Practical  experience,  with  apprenticeship  or  special  investigations  3 
Practical  experience,  with  mention  of  education  but  no  specifica- 
tion as  to  kind 2 

Practical  experience,  with  common-school  education 3 

Practical  experience,  with  high-school   course 3 

There  is  considerable  scattering  of  opinion  due  to  the 
diversity  of  industries  and  the  small  extent  to  which  cost 
accounting  systems  have  as  yet  been  applied  to  the  prob- 
lems of  administration  in  most  lines  of  business. 

The  feeling  seems  to  prevail  that  much  depends  on 
common  sense,  thinking  power,  and  experience.  Seven  per 
cent  of  the  houses  demand  business-college  training,  seven 
per  cent  high-school  training,  and  forty-nine  per  cent 
make  some  kind  of  university  study  a  minimum  require- 
ment. Although  thirty-six  per  cent  emphasize  practical 
experience,  one-third  of  these  expressly  favor  education 
of  some  kind,  and  no  one  of  the  others  expresses  opposition 
to  education,  although  making  no  specific  requirements. 

Thus,  in  the  case  of  expert  accountants  as  in  the  case 
of  men  in  other  lines,  the  business  college  appears  to 
be  discounted  in  its  ability  to  give  adequate  training. 
Doubtless  the  greater  degree  of  expertness  felt  to  be  neces- 
sary in  the  case  of  accountants  is  the  chief  explanation  for 
the  emphasis  laid  upon  technical  university  training.  The 
fact  that  an  accounting  system  must  be  adjusted  to  the 
needs  of  the  individual  concern  as  well  as  to  the  special 


QUESTIONNAIRE  ON  COURSES  IN  BUSINESS  95 

type  of  business  probably  makes  the  call  for  practical  ex- 
perience more  insistent. 

The  replies,  then,  show  the  majority  to  be  strongly  in 
favor  of  specialized  university  accounting  courses,  while 
the  emphasis  upon  experience  surely  demands  the  most 
perfect  laboratory  development  and  a  large  amount  of 
"field  work." 

Question  number  three  relates  to  advertising  and  was 
stated  as  follows:  What  kind  of  education  will  give  us 
young  men  who  can  make  our  advertising  more  efficient? 
The  returns  from  the  sixty  houses  making  specific  replies 
give  the  following  as  the  proper  method  of  training  for 
advertising  work : 

No  educational  requirement 1 

High  school  and  practical  experience 2 

Business  college  1 

Practical  experience 12 

General  college  training,  supplemented  by  business  experience 3 

General  college  training,  supplemented  by  special  business  training  5 

General  college  training,  without  further  specifications 14 

Engineering,  without  mention  of  business  courses 1 

Special  university  courses  bearing  on  advertising 21 

The  table  of  replies  shows  that  twenty  per  cent  insist 
on  practical  experience,  while  thirty-seven  per  cent  favor 
general  cultural  education,  nearly  a  fourth  adding,  how- 
ever, that  it  be  supplemented  by  specialized  business  knowl- 
edge. Thirty-five  per  cent  maintain  that  special  university 
courses  should  be  followed  by  the  prospective  advertising 
expert,  one-third  of  these  specifying  one  or  more  lines  of 
study  which  they  think  deserve  special  attention.  Of  the 
latter,  three  name  salesmanship  courses,  two  psychology, 
one  expression,  and  one  statistics. 

In  the  replies  considerable  mention  is  made  of  adver- 
tising "genius,"  "publicity  sense,"  and  intuition.  There  is 
an  evident  feeling  that  there  is  a  large  element  in  the  ad- 
vertiser's business  that  cannot  be  supplied  by  mere  scien- 
tific training.  However,  in  so  far  as  educational  training 
enables  the  advertiser  to  know  more  completely  the  needs 
of  the  purchasers,  and  to  give  better  expression  to  his 


96        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

printed  statements  or  appeals  of  other  kinds  the  concensus 
of  opinion  among  those  making  reply  favors  education  for 
prospective  advertising  specialists. 

Question  number  four  relates  to  salesmanship  and  is 
as  follows:  What  training  will  give  us  better  salesmen? 

The  amount  of  indefiniteness  to  the  replies  to  this 
question  is  especially  great.  Of  the  sixty-six  who  ventured 
answers  at  all,  twenty-three  were  not  specific  enough  to 
be  classified.  That  is,  they  did  not  give  expression  to  any 
opinion  as  to  the  particular  kind  of  preparation  to  which 
the  prospective  salesman  should  subject  himself.  Most  of 
them  left  off  with  giving  a  nebulous  statement  relating  to 
the  genius,  integrity,  the  religious  or  social  qualities  of 
the  salesman.  It  appears  in  the  case  of  salesmen  even 
more  prominently  than  in  the  case  of  advertising  special- 
ists that  personal  qualities  appeal  to  many  business  houses 
as  the  prime  requisite  to  successful  salesmanship  rather 
than  a  particular  course  of  scientific  training  through 
which  the  candidate  may  have  passed. 

Of  the  forty-three  replies  subject  to  classification  the 
following  distribution  of  methods  of  preparation  for  sales- 
manship was  made: 

Practical  experience 18 

General  cultural  training 12 

Special   salesmanship  courses 12 

Nearly  forty-two  per  cent  lay  the  emphasis  on  practical 
experience,  twenty-eight  per  cent  on  general  cultural  train- 
ing, and  thirty  per  cent  on  special  training  for  which  the 
university  is  fitted. 

It  appears  that  the  business  houses  are  not  yet  con- 
vinced of  the  eflQcacy  of  scientific  salesmanship,  and  that 
the  burden  of  proof  rests  with  the  universities.  Some  of 
those  answering  seem  to  be  extremely  skeptical  of  the 
value  of  a  scientific  study  of  salesmansliip,  and  few,  if  any, 
consider  it  more  than  an  adjunct  whose  promise  of  useful- 
ness is  moderate. 

Qncslion  number  five  is  stated  as  follows:  Can  we  get 
young  men  who  can  aid  our  business  by  thorough  knowl- 


QUESTIONNAIKE  ON  COUESES  IN  BUSINESS  97 

edge  and  study  of  transportation  routes  and  rates,  the  de- 
velopment of  new  markets  and  new  uses  for  our  products? 
Among  the  forty-five  definite  replies  received  the  diver- 
sity of  opinion  is  shown  in  the  following  table : 

No,  without  further  comment 10 

No,  with  a  slight  concession 2 

Yes,  without  further  comment 25 

Yes,  specifying  "in  practical  field" 6 

Yes,  specifying  technical  university  study 2 

Twenty-seven  per  cent  of  those  making  definite  re- 
plies gave  negative  answers.  Some  of  them  may  have  mis- 
understood the  question,  thinking  that  it  related  to  a 
present  supply  rather  than  a  possible  future  supply  of 
men  having  the  knowledge  indicated.  At  any  rate,  fully 
seventy-three  per  cent  believe  in  the  possibility  of  secur- 
ing men  whose  studies  in  transportation  and  market  condi- 
tions will  enable  them  to  render  important  commercial 
service.  Six  of  those  answering  in  tlie  affirmative  stated 
that  the  knowledge  should  be  gained  "in  the  practical 
field''  or  "with  some  commercial  house."  While  only  two 
specified  that  they  thought  that  this  knowledge  should  be 
derived  from  technical  university  study,  yet  the  statement 
in  the  questionnaire,  that  its  object  was  "to  enable  the 
University  of  Illinois  to  shape  and  organize  its  course," 
justifies  us  in  regarding  an  affirmative  answer  as  favorable 
to  university  courses  along  the  designated  lines.  Practi- 
cally all  who  insist  that  the  university  cannot  do  this  work 
successfully  have  doubtless  seen  the  necessity  of  specifying 
tliat  the  training  should  be  received  "in  the  practical 
field."  If  this  be  granted,  we  may  gather  from  the  replies 
that  approximately  sixty  per  cent  of  tlie  houses  answering 
are  in  favor  of  special  university  study  as  a  preparation 
for  expert  commercial  work  in  transportation,  the  opening 
of  new  markets,  and  the  discovery  of  new  uses  for  products. 


98        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

The  percentage  of  those  giving  definite  answers  in 
favor  of  special  university  courses  as  shown  by  the  returns 
on  the  five  questions  is  as  follows : 

Per  Cent  Favoring 
Question  Subject  University  Training 

I        Office  assistants   34 

II        Cost  accountants   49 

III  Advertising  specialists 35 

IV  Salesmen    30 

V        Experts    on    transportation,    new    markets, 

and  products 60 

It  is  difficult  to  determine  beyond  doubt  to  what  de- 
gree the  above  figures  represent  the  views  of  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Illinois  Manufacturers'  Association,  The  fact 
that  fewer  than  one  out  of  ten  of  those  receiving  the  ques- 
tionnaires took  the  trouble  to  mail  their  replies  should  not 
be  overlooked.  It  may  easily  be  true  that  a  larger  propor- 
tion of  those  holding  views  extremely  favorable  or  ex- 
tremely unfavorable  sent  their  replies  than  those  holding 
less  decided  views.  This  being  the  case  the  replies  may 
be  taken  to  be  fairly  representative  of  the  opinions  prevail- 
ing among  the  members  of  the  Association  generally,  al- 
though no  more  than  a  fair  degree  of  representativeness 
should  be  claimed  for  them. 

Taking  the  returns  as  they  stand,  the  demand  for  uni- 
versity-trained office  assistants  is  voiced  by  one-third  of 
the  houses  answering  the  questionnaire.  Special  univer- 
sity training  for  accountants  is  requested  by  practically 
one-lialf  the  concerns.  Althoiigli  personality  and  talent  fig- 
ure greatly  in  tlie  success  of  advertising  experts  and  sales- 
men, about  one-tliird  of  those  making  re])ly  favor  university 
courses  to  qualify  men  more  completely  for  this  work.  The 
conduct  of  transportation,  the  opening  of  new  markets, 
and  the  better  disposal  of  products,  sixty  per  cent  of  the 
answering  houses  are  in  favor  of  placing  in  the  hands  of 
men  trained  in  special  university  courses. 


FOURTH  SESSION 
DEDICATION  OF  THE  COMMERCE  BUILDING 


o 


( 


The  College  Graduate  a  Business  Tyeo — ^A  Matter 
OF  Adjustment 

Howard  Elting 
President  of  the  Chicago  Association  of  Commerce 

It  gives  me  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  as  a  citizen  of 
Illinois,  and  President  of  the  Chicago  Association  of  Com- 
merce, to  be  present  today  to  help  celebrate  your  dedica- 
tion of  the  building  for  the  School  of  Business  Adminis- 
tration. I  bring  you  greetings  from  the  four  thousand 
members  of  our  Association  and  can  assure  you  of  their 
deep  interest  in  the  efforts  put  forth  by  the  University  of 
Illinois  to  improve  the  eflSciency  of  the  young  men  going 
out  into  the  business  world. 

Our  organization  has  always  been  deeply  interested 
in  the  welfare  of  your  university  and  has  lent  its  aid  in 
securing  for  you  of  greater  revenue  from  the  State.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  are  under  many  obligations  to  Presi- 
dent James,  Dean  Kinley,  Dean  Goss,  Dean  Davenport,  and 
others  for  the  help  they  have  given  us  whenever  we  have 
had  occasion  to  call  upon  them. 

Approaching  my  subject  as  I  do,  as  a  business  man, 
and  in  particular  as  a  manufacturer,  I  trust  I  shall  escape 
the  criticism  of  your  Dean,  Mr.  Kinley,  who  has  said  that 
when  the  business  man  comes  to  Champaign  to  speak,  he 
is  likely  to  be  more  academic  than  the  academic  man,  and 
is  generally  warned  not  to  read  his  speech  from  encyclo- 
pedias but  to  tell  you  informally  how  he  runs  his  own 
business.  Today,  however,  I  am  not  invited  to  tell  you 
how  I  run  my  business,  but  to  tell  you  how  well  I  expect 
you  to  run  it  when  you  take  it  away  from  me. 

I  do  want  the  undergraduates  to  feel  that  the  busi- 
ness men  of  Chicago  are  deeply  interested  in  their  future 
and  stand  ready  to  co-operate  with  them  when  they  leave 
college  to  find  the  niche  in  which  they  are  best  fitted  in 

101 


102      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

the  world  of  commerce.  It  is  a  matter  of  great  impor- 
tance to  captains  of  industry  to  understand  what  our  uni- 
versities are  doing  for  the  training  of  the  younger  genera- 
tion of  business  men,  and  the  discussion  of  this  particular 
topic  may  be  the  means  of  educating  the  employer  as  well 
as  the  future  employee. 

I  take  it,  judging  from  letters  I  have  received  from 
several  large  employers  of  labor  in  Chicago,  that  as  yet 
there  has  not  been  an  appreciable  number  of  college  gradu- 
ates from  university  schools  of  commerce  who  have  ap- 
plied for  positions.  In  all  the  replies  I  received  in  answer 
to  a  number  of  questions  I  had  prepared  to  ascertain  the 
opinion  of  employers  on  this  topic,  you  will  see  that  the 
college  graduate  is  taken  to  be  the  man  who  has  graduated 
from  college  with  the  ordinary  academic  or  scientific 
training  usually  given  the  college  students,  such  as  your 
university  aims  to  graduate  in  its  liberal  arts  courses,  and 
that  the  specialized  product  of  university  schools  of  busi- 
ness administration  does  not  yet  seem  to  be  reckoned  with. 

The  time  is  ripe  for  such  specialized  training,  as 
business  during  the  past  ten  or  fifteen  years  has  changed 
materially,  and,  whereas  before  this  time  there  has  been 
a  place  for  the  untrained,  today  business  needs  the  busi- 
ness engineer  and  the  requirements  of  industry  now  de- 
mand not  only  men  who  are  willing  but  men  who  know. 

As  has  been  well  said  in  the  preface  to  the  work  out- 
lined in  your  own  university,  "The  necessary  condition  of 
successful  business  management  now  is  the  ability  to  un- 
derstand the  complex  relations  of  a  great  organization,  to 
correlate  them  and  to  make  the  machinery  of  the  organiza- 
tion operate  without  friction  and  waste." 

May  we  not  now  say,  young  man,  tliat  your  problem 
of  adjustment  and  your  future  employer's  problem  of  ad- 
justment have  a  coiiinion  dencmiinator  in  character?  Here 
you  are  being  taught  the  structure  and  economic  motives 
of  business.  You  are  not  coming  to  us  as  your  fathers 
came  without  special  fitness  for  your  chosen  calling  or  for 


COLLEGE  GRADUATE  A   BUSINESS  TYRO  103 

the  job  offering  you  the  coveted  start.  You  are  coming  to 
us  with  some  knowledge  of  how  small  business  and  even 
big  business  is  run.  You  have  seen  the  thing  in  the  dis- 
tance and  you  know  something  about  its  contents  and  how 
they  work  together.  And  the  boss  in  the  inside  office, 
what  about  him?  Does  he  want  you?  He  does.  Does  he 
know  you?  No.  I  don't  believe  he  does  know  you.  Will 
he  hire  you?    He  will. 

Will  you  two  pull  together — tyro  and  tyrant,  speaking 
of  the  employer  as  master  rather  than  despot?  Well,  that's 
th^  question,  and  the  permanent  solution  depends  upon 
you  both,  and  particularly  upon  you  and  upon  that  some- 
thing which  college  training  can  fashion  and  mature,  but 
not  create — character. 

I  take  it  that  the  function  of  the  college  is  primarily 
to  train  character.  No  doubt,  you  remember  during  the 
recent  investigation  before  the  Pujo  Committee,  Mr.  J. 
Pierpont  Morgan  was  asked  whether  commercial  credits 
were  based  upon  the  possession  of  money  or  property. 
"No,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Morgan,  "the  first  thing  is  character. 
Before  money  or  anything  else,"  repeated  Mr.  Morgan, 
"money  cannot  buy  it." 

There  is  the  keynote,  gentlemen.  Your  character  has 
to  be  formed  while  you  are  going  through  this  preliminary 
training  for  business.  Without  a  proper  conception  of 
what  that  means,  you  will  never  succeed,  no  matter  how 
highly  you  are  specialized.  Here  is  laid  the  foundation 
of  that  character  which  money  cannot  buy. 

I  do  not  mean  to  preach,  nor  am  I  bold  enough  in  this 
center  to  presume  to  teach,  but  I  fail  of  my  point  if  I  do 
not  suggest  what  is  expected  of  you  when  you  bring  to  the 
business  man  your  specialized  business  attainments  and 
say  "try  me."  Wliat  is  this  "(Muiracter,"  c.>iniii()n])lace 
and  yet  in  its  higher  manifestations  rare?  Of  course,  I 
but  travel  in  a  circle  if  I  say  that  cliaracter  is  personality, 
but  trite  as  the  truth  is,  I  must  stick  to  it  and  reiterate  it 
and  then  go  back  and  do  it  again. 


104      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

What  the  business  world  expects  of  you  is  the  having 
and  doing  of  the  virtues  that  have  always  made  real  men. 
Bring  them  to  us  with  what  you  have  got  from  book  and 
laboratory  and  we  will  do  more  than  look  up  and  nod 
when  you  enter  the  office  for  the  first  time.  We  will  go 
down  to  the  street  door  and  assure  you  that  we  have  been 
holding  a  place  for  you.  What  should  you  bring?  A  spirit 
of  subordination;  a  will  to  take  a  humble  and  hard  job — 
for  no  great  time  perhaps — and  hold  it  with  cheerfulness 
and  grit;  a  consciousness  of  your  own  shortcomings  but 
with  resolute  confidence  in  yourself  and  courteous  appre- 
ciation of  the  worth  and  prowess  of  fellow-workers  who 
are  from  the  "University  of  Hard  Knocks" ;  patience,  when 
misunderstood  or  underestimated. 

To  adjust  yourself  to  a  business  you  will  have  to  keep 
everlastingly  at  it.  Work  and  more  work  and  on  top  of 
that  more  work  will  be  the  first  requisite.  No  thought  of 
the  clock;  no  thought  for  some  time  of  the  salary  you  are 
paid.  Kemember  that  your  employer  is  as  anxious  for 
you  to  succeed  as  you  are  yourself.  He  will  be  watching 
you  without  talking  about  it,  especially  if  he  is  not  a  col- 
lege man.  I  could  multiply  instances  of  failure  because 
the  college  graduate  did  not  have  the  "sand"  to  stick. 
Seventeen-year-old  boys  may  cut  rings  around  you  at  first, 
but  you  should  have  the  feeling  that  with  your  college 
experience  you  should  pass  them  before  long,  and  you  will, 
provided  you  combine  with  your  technical  training  those 
homely  virtues  which  all  truly  great  and  successful  men 
have  possessed. 

One  of  the  functions  of  a  university  is  to  discover 
talent;  in  some  business  organizations  departments  have 
been  established  where  talent  is  discovered  by  the  pro- 
cess of  taking  cjiro  of  the  misfits  in  tlie  organization.  Men 
taken  from  one  department  where  they  have  failed  to  make 
good,  have  been  found  to  bo  successful  when  clianged  to 
other  work. 

Do  not  get  discouraged.  Develop  the  latent  talent 
that  is  within  you  and  then  "saw  wood."    Keep  your  eyes 


COLLEGE   GRADUATE   A   BUSINESS  TYRO  105 

open  and  keep  thinking.  Your  particular  job  may  never 
have  been  properly  developed.  You  may  correlate  certain 
processes  of  manufacture  in  such  a  way  as  to  save  tliou- 
sands  of  dollars  for  your  company.  In  other  words,  you 
should  be  thinking  ahead  while  you  are  working  at  your 
daily  task. 

Gentlemen,  I  frankly  confess  that  until  recently  I 
did  not  know  how  extensive  and  intensive  were  the  plans 
in  our  greater  institutions  of  learning  for  training  for 
business  administration.  I  did  not  realize  that  so  much 
is  being  done  to  make  the  graduates  of  the  schools  of 
commerce,  business  men  in  fact,  call  them  though  you 
may  tyros.  I  did  not  realize  that  the  University  of  Illi- 
nois had  in  its  enrollment  for  business  courses  over  two 
thousand  registrations,  nor  that  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania, the  University  of  Chicago,  the  University  of 
Wisconsin,  the  University  of  Michigan,  and  Harvard  Uni- 
versity were  advancing  in  the  broad  constructive  way, 
putting  these  institutions  into  this  new  and  practical  field 
of  service. 

In  reminding  you  of  the  pioneer  work  of  the  great 
universities  in  the  development  of  schools  of  higher  com- 
mercial education,  I  do  not  forget  to  say,  that  to  that 
staunch  old  New  England  college,  Dartmouth,  we  all  owe 
a  debt,  in  its  establishment  in  1900  of  the  first  system  of 
post-graduate  instruction  in  business  administration, 
commerce,  and  finance.  No  school  of  its  kind  antedates 
the  Amos  Tuck  School  of  Dartmouth  College. 

With  confidence  and  satisfaction  I  note  the  develop- 
ment of  evening  extension  courses  in  commerce  in  various 
universities,  and  refer  with  special  pride  to  the  School  of 
Commerce  of  Northwestern  University,  founded  upon 
guarantors  of  prominent  members  of  the  Chicago  Associa- 
tion of  Commerce,  and  now  planning  developments,  ex- 
tending the  course  of  instruction  to  five  years. 

It  is  an  eye  opener  to  the  employer  today,  to  read  the 
final  examination  papers  of  your  university  or  from  those 


106      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

of  the  post-graduate  school  of  Harvard  University.      I 
quote  from  the  final  examination  papers  of  Harvard  on  the : 

Economic  Resources  and  Commercial  Organization  of  Central  and 

South  America 

1.  On  the  accompanying  outline  map  of  South  America  locate  and 
name  the  following: 

a)  The  mountain  systems. 

b)  The  four  chief  river  systems. 

c)  The  chief  trunk  lines  and  international  railroads. 

d)  The  constituent  countries  of  the  continent. 

i)  Their  capitals. 

2)  Their  chief  cities. 

3)  The  chief  port  or  ports  of  each. 

e)  The  source  of  the  chief  exports. 

2.  a)    Name   and    discuss    the    various    South   American    periodicals 

on  file  at  the  Business  School  Reading  Room.  How  would 
you  rank  them  as  to  their  advertising  value  for  the  Ameri- 
can products  and  why? 
b)  From  your  reading  what  have  you  gathered  as  to  the  place 
or  influence  of  the  following  in  the  development  of  South 
America — Balmaceda,  the  sertao,  the  gaucho,  the  "camp,"  the 
Gran  Chaco,  Roca,  mate  and  Ceara. 

3.  "The  population  of  Western  Colombia  and  of  Ecuador,  Peru, 
Chile  and  Bolivia  is  approximately  11,000,000,  dwelling  chiefly  along  the 
sea  coast.  It  has  been  assumed  that  only  this  long  slope  of  almost  con- 
tinuous mountain  wall  from  Panama  to  Patagonia  is  subject  to  the  direct 
influence  of  the  canal,  and  that  the  barrier  of  the  Andes  makes  all  the 
rest  of  the  South  American  Continent  dependent  on  Atlantic  outlets.  The 
assumption  is  presumptuous." 

"As  one  result  of  the  Panama  Canal  a  measure  of  Amazonian  com- 
merce will  flow  to  and  from  the  Pacific." 

"The  world's  hunger  for  crude  rubber  is  a  growing  one." 

"The  grain  fields  and  pastures  of  Argentina  lie  close  to  the  Pacific. 
The  pressure  of  the  agricultural  population  is  westward.  A  generation — 
perhaps  a  decade — will  bring  it  to  the  slopes  of  the  Andes."  (Pepper, 
Panama  to  Patagonia,  pp.  4-7.) 

Discuss  these  excerpts,  relative  to  the  Panama  Canal,  carefully,  state- 
ment by  statement. 

4.  Taking  up  Argentina  and  Brazil  both  as  to  their  products  and  their 
exports  show  how  the  trade  between  them  and  the  United  States  is  affected 


COLLEGE  GRADUATE  A   BUSINESS  TYRO  107 

and  the  bearing  it  has  on  the  United  States,  east  coast  shipping,  and  on 
the  establishment  of  an  American  bank. 

5.  a)     Explain  succinctly  the  valorization  of  coffee. 

b)  A  conference  was  held  in  Rio  de  Janeiro  in  August,  191 1,  to 
consider  the  valorization  of  rubber.     Discuss  its  feasibility. 

c)  Discuss  similarly  the  practicability  of  valorizing  nitrate. 

6.  a)    You  are  an  American  manufacturer  of  sewing  machines.    You 

have  decided  to  enter  the  Latin-American  market.  How  shall 
you  proceed  and  why,  bearing  in  mind  the  nature  of  your 
product,  its  potential  consumption  and  the  location  of  the 
market. 

b)  Substituting  flour  for  sewing  machines,  how  would  your  answer 
vary? 

c)  And  how  with  shoes? 

We  in  Chicago  have  recently  become  interested  in  the 
building  up  of  trade  in  South  America.  We  have  sent  our 
own  representatives  to  Buenos  Aires  to  open  up  a  sample 
room  and  make  business  connections  for  us.  How  we 
would  welcome  employees  who  were  able  to  pass  the  Har- 
vard examinations  bearing  upon  the  Economic  and  Com- 
mercial Organizations  of  Central  and  South  America! 
How  helpful  a  man,  with  such  preliminary  training,  would 
be  as  a  sales  manager  in  charge  of  foreign  business. 

Or  to  quote  from  the  same  papers,  how  fortunate  a 
manufacturer  who  could  pick  up  a  man  familiar  with 
industrial  organization  and  able  to  answer  the  following: 

Industrial  Organization 

1.  Prepare  a  chart  for  a  combination  line  and  staff  organization  for 
either  a  textile  mill,  a  shoe  factory,  an  engineering  plant,  or  a  leather 
plant,  giving  suitable  titles  to  the  various  officials. 

2.  How  would  you  arrange  the  buildings  for  a  ship-building  estab- 
lishment, including  foundry,  forge  shop,  pattern  shop,  pattern  storage, 
power  plant,  boiler  shop,  machine  shop,  carpenter  shop,  paint  shop,  erecting 
shop,  tool  shop,  storehouse  and  offices,  on  a  rectangular  plot  of  ground, 
one  end  on  the  harbor,  and  with  a  railroad  running  diagonally  across  the 
other  end? 

In  such  papers,  prepared  under  the  eyes  of  Professor 
Kinley,  a  man  of  Pan-American  knowledge  and  fame,  or 


108      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

proceeding  from  the  Harvard  training  school  for  business 
executives,  we  find  hope  that  the  new  type  of  university 
man  who  comes  to  us  for  employment  may  come  not  so 
much  as  a  learner  but  as  a  teacher. 

Indeed,  I  would  advise  that  this  School  of  Administra- 
tion, unless  such  practice  is  already  in  vogue,  issue  special 
advertising  advices  to  employers  in  large  business,  inform- 
ing them  what  this  institution  is  doing  to  fit  the  new  man 
for  the  new  twentieth-century  job.  It  is  not  enough  to 
send  a  catalogue  when  someone  requests  it.  It  is  not  a 
catalogue  that  a  business  man  wants.  He  wants  to  know 
what  you  are  selling  and  he  wants  the  information  given 
to  him  with  the  brevity  and  pungency  of  a  business  letter. 
Then  follow  up  with  the  goods — with  the  new  business  boy. 

With  this  impressive  growth  in  mind — a  service 
meeting  the  requirements  of  modern  business  and  offering 
the  instrumentality  of  its  expansion  and  regulation — I 
desire  to  lay  before  you  certain  interesting  thoughts  from 
leaders  in  Chicago  business,  the  range  of  their  experience 
embracing  most  of  the  courses  offered  in  this  great  uni- 
versity. 

Letter  from   a  Superintendent  of  Motive   Power  of  a  Large 
Railroad  System 

What  are  the  characteristics  of  the  young  man  applying  for  work, 
who  has  had  some  business  education  at  college  or  university? 

A  college  or  university  is  part  of  a  young  man's  environment,  but 
in  speaking  of  a  young  man's  characteristics,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  heredity  as  well  as  environment  is  an  important  factor  in  the  for- 
mation of  these  characteristics.  Oftentimes,  a  university  is  blamed  for 
the  lack  of  qualities  which  it  could  never  supply.  Environment  is  proba- 
bly the  more  powerful  factor  though  and  has  produced  what  might  be 
called  two  classes  of  college  graduates.  One  class  consists  of  fellows 
who  have  worked  their  way  through  school,  either  wholly  or  partly,  and 
the  other  class  consists  of  fellows  who  have  been  lavishly  supplied  with 
money  and  in  many  cases  are  in  college  so  as  to  be  out  of  the  parent's 
way.  Fellows  who  have  had  to  work  hard  will  be  careful,  ambitious, 
considerate  of  the  man  who  has  to  earn  his  living,  will  have  initiative, 
be  able  to  take  hard  knocks  without  becoming  discouraged.     They  will 


COLLEGE  GR.VDUATE  A   BUSINESS  TYRO  109 

have  a  high  moral  sense  and  be  very  clean  livers  and  in  general,  will 
choose  an  occupation  to  which  they  are  adapted. 

The  other  class  of  men  often  lose  sight  during  their  college  career 
of  the  serious  side  of  life  work  and  often  train  for  positions  to  which 
they  are  not  adapted,  having  been  led  astray  by  a  promising  financial 
outlook.  These  men  will  not  be  so  well  informed  on  the  technicalities 
of  their  position  and  oftentimes  have  developed  tastes  which  lead  them 
to  devote  time  to  pleasure  which  should  be  given  to  studying  their  job. 
If  put  into  a  position  where  they  come  into  contact  with  men  whom 
they  consider  beneath  them,  they  will  lose  many  valuable  points  concern- 
ing detail. 

However,  it  is  hard  to  form  a  general  case,  and  there  are  many 
exceptions  in  either  class.  Then,  too,  the  advent  of  the  college  man  into 
the  business  world  is  of  such  comparatively  recent  date,  that  the  univer- 
sities have  not  had  a  chance  to  study  the  results  of  their  work  and 
strengthen  the  weak  points. 

How  does  he  excel? 

The  college  man  will  excel  one  who  has  not  had  that  advantage  in 
the  following  ways :  His  knowledge  of  fundamentals,  such  as  the  sci- 
ences, mathematics  and  English,  gives  him  an  ability  to  read  intelligently 
current  literature  bearing  on  his  position.  Especially  is  this  important 
in  the  case  of  a  man  who  is  employed  in  the  engineering  field.  The 
training  a  college  man  gets  inclines  him  to  look  beyond  a  minor  position 
he  may  be  filling  as  a  starter.  He  is  more  inclined  to  view  his  own 
position  as  it  relates  to  the  organization  of  the  company  as  a  whole.  He 
is  also  able  to  solve  problems  which  are  out  of  the  ordinary  routine. 

In  what  does  he  lack? 

Perhaps  the  chief  failing  of  the  college  man  is  the  restlessness  due 
to  the  knowledge  that  he  is  only  filling  a  subordinate  position.  He  desires 
promotion  too  soon  and  minor  positions  are  not  paid  so  as  to  enable  him 
to  live  as  he  might  desire.  He  often  does  not  realize  the  full  significance 
of  the  knowledge  the  practical  man  has  gained  from  experience.  If  he 
knows  his  direct  superior  officer  is  not  a  college  man,  he  is  inclined  to 
think  himself  superior,  which  is  sure  to  start  trouble,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  many  valuable  points  which  may  be  picked  up  by  experience,  and 
which  a  superior  attitude  always  loses. 

//  he  has  moral  stamina  does  he  eventually  advance  the  standards 
and  efficiency  of  your  business? 

Possessing  moral  stamina,  he  undoubtedly  advances  the  standards  of 
efficiency  because  he  will  not  propose  anything  without  a  reason,  and 
will  prove  his  results  with  figures.  His  training  allows  no  factors  to 
escape  which  should  enter  into  the  solution  of  a  problem. 

Is  he  desired  as  a  new  employee  or  are  you  indifferent  to  his  coming? 

That  a  certain  percentage  of  new  employees  shall  be  college  or  tech- 
nical men  is  very  desirous  and  instead  of  being  indifferent,  we  look  for 
them. 


110      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

Does  his  academic  training  need  only  the  technical  training  of  your 
road  to  make  him  the  new  business  man? 

This  question  cannot  be  answered  by  "yes"  or  "no"  on  account  of 
the  heredity  characteristics  of  the  man.  Some  men  might  go  to  a  univer- 
sity a  lifetime  and  then  be  a  flat  business  failure.  Given  equal  business 
ability  to  start  with,  the  college  man  will  undoubtedly  excel  the  non- 
college  man  in  business. 

Is  his  spirit  towards  his  job  right? 

The  answer  to  this  question  concerning  a  college  man's  attitude  to- 
ward his  job  is  contained  in  the  answers  to  the  previous  questions.  He 
will  take  great  interest  at  first,  but  interest  lags  and  he  becomes  dissatis- 
fied as  he  comes  to  a  realization  of  the  long,  hard  path  it  is  to  the  top. 
Many  subordinate  positions  have  a  degree  of  sameness  and  monotony 
connected  with  them  which  causes  a  spirit  of  unrest.  I  think,  however, 
that  the  average  college  man  is  very  conscientious  about  his  work  and 
has  a  tendency  to  give  all  that  is  in  him. 

Are  the  leaders  of  modern  business  to  be  found  anywhere  else  than 
in  the  applicants  from  our  schools  of  commerce,  who  sincerely  and  per- 
sistently seek  adjustment  with  the  condition  of  business? 

To  say  the  leaders  of  modern  business  are  to  be  found  only  among 
the  graduates  of  our  schools  of  commerce  is  against  the  very  institutions 
of  our  country.  So  many  factors  enter  into  the  proper  man  for  the 
proper  position  that  merit  alone  should  be  the  basis  for  the  final  judg- 
ment and  all  men  should  have  equal  opportunities  regardless  of  whether 
they  are  graduates  of  schools  of  commerce  or  not. 

The  answers  to  these  questions  can  only  be  considered  general.  It 
is  the  experience  of  one  man  but  the  experience  of  some  other  may  be 
entirely  different,  as  well  as  the  personal  opinions.  The  problems  of  mod- 
ern business  are  becoming  more  and  more  complex,  so  that  for  the  logical 
and  scientific  solution  of  these  problems,  reasoning  powers  are  demanded, 
which  can  be  developed  only  by  a  course  of  training  such  as  a  college  or 
university  gives.  Many  problems  involve  not  only  a  knowledge  of  busi- 
ness principles  but  also  a  knowledge  of  economics  and  even  psychology. 
All  these  elements  can  be  properly  studied  only  in  a  school  or  university, 
but  the  student  must  be  made  to  realize  the  immense  importance  of  the 
practical  side  and  not  get  the  idea  that  when  he  obtains  a  diploma  he 
has  no  more  to  learn.  The  business  he  engages  in  is  in  reality  a  school. 
He  begins  at  the  foot  or  primer  in  such  business  and  should  go  through 
every  department  and  thus  attain  a  detailed  knowledge  that  will  assist 
materially  when  he  reaches  the  more  important  position  of  manager, 
etc.,  in  handling  the  business  and  forming  policies  that  will  make  for 
success. 


COLLEGE  GRADUATE  A   BUSINESS  TYRO  111 

From  the  President  of  a  Railroad 

It  seems  to  me  obvious  that  one  cannot  make  an  absolute  statement 
that  college  men  are  better  than  non-college  men,  or  that  the  reverse 
is  true.  Generalizations  are  dangerous.  I  regard  college  experience 
as  like  a  little  world  which  gives  a  man  a  good  many  of  the  same  sort  of 
experiences  that  he  will  meet  in  the  real  or  big  world.  In  the  colleges 
that  I  know  most  about  he  will  find  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men, 
not  only  in  respect  to  wealth,  but  also  attitude  of  mind,  morality,  etc. 
If  a  man  is  weak  he  is  liable  to  be  swept  away  by  temptation ;  but  it  is 
at  least  a  question  whether  this  man,  going  into  the  world  without  this 
experience,  would  have  been  safe. 

It  is  generally  conceded  that  college  education  means  a  good  deal 
more  today  than  what  is  learned  out  of  books.  If  schools  and  colleges 
do  not  prepare  boys  and  girls  for  life,  they  are  a  failure.  To  my  mind, 
the  most  important  things  that  a  college  can  teach  are  methods  of  work 
and  ideals.  If  men  are  going  to  be  judged  simply  on  the  basis  of 
accomplishment,  regardless  of  the  methods  they  employ,  I  presume  one 
hundred  men,  taken  at  random,  without  a  college  education,  will  show 
up  quite  as  well  as  one  hundred  men,  taken  at  random,  who  have.  Any 
man  of  experience  knows  that  there  are  always  opportunities  to  "cut  cor- 
ners" and  to  reach  the  goal  you  are  striving  for  without  strictly  adhering 
to  the  rules  of  the  game.  Some  men  think  that  if  the  umpire  is  not 
looking  it  is  all  right  to  do  this ;  and  I  do  not  pretend  to  claim  that  the 
college  men  are  wholly  above  reproach ;  but  I  do  believe  that  as  a  rule 
their  ethical  and  moral  standards  are  higher. 

When  it  comes  to  scientific  work  or  technical  work  of  any  kind  a 
college  man  has  a  tremendous  advantage  over  one  who  has  not  had  the 
advantage  of  a  college  education.  Even  if  a  man  knows  absolutely  noth- 
ing about  the  subject  he  is  investigating,  but  from  having  absorbed  the 
correct  method  of  undertaking  any  scientific  investigation  he  goes  to  work 
at  the  new  problem  to  learn  the  facts,  and  will  not  try  to  form  conclu- 
sions until  he  has  considered  all  the  facts.  The  method  too  often  fol- 
lowed by  the  man  who  has  not  had  the  advantage  of  training  in  scientific 
methods  is  to  select  those  facts  which  prove  what  he  desires  to  show  or 
re-enforce  a  preconceived  notion. 

With  this  preface,  I  will  answer  your  queries : 

1.  How  does  he  excels 

If  at  all,  he  excels  through  greater  knowledge  of  life. 

2.  In  what  does  he  lack* 

I  do  not  think  any  general  statement  would  fit  the  case. 

3.  //  he  has  moral  stamina,  does  he  eventually  advance  the  standards 
and  efficiency  of  your  busincssf 

I  think  he  does. 


112        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

4.  Is  he  desired  as  a  new  employee,  or  are  you  indifferent  to  /it4 
coniingf 

It  is  an  old  saying  that  "You  can't  make  a  silk  purse  out  of  a  sow's 
ear."  The  desirability  of  a  man  depends  even  more  on  his  personality 
than  on  the  training  he  has  had. 

5.  Does  his  academic  training  need  only  the  technical  training  of 
your  road  to  make  him  the  new  business  man? 

I  would  rather  have  a  broadly  educated  man,  unfamiliar  with  tech- 
nique of  any  trade  or  business,  than  to  have  a  man  who  had  simply  the 
technique  without  the  foundation.  Of  course,  in  some  lines  (engineering^ 
for  instance)  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  have  the  technical  knowledge ; 
but  a  man  who  has  a  technical  training  without  a  broad  foundation 
doesn't  get  very  far  unless  he  has  sufficient  persistence  and  ambition  to 
educate  himself  in  the  great  university  of  life. 

6.  Is  his  spirit  towards  his  job  right? 

This  depends  largely  on  the  character  of  the  man.  It  is  quite  the 
fashion  to  make  jokes  about  college  men  being  vain  or  conceited  about 
their  knowledge  of  things,  but  it  is  not  my  experience  with  them  as  a 
class.  Of  course,  individuals  may  have  these  faults,  and  nothing  will 
eradicate  them.  But  school  and  college  is  as  likely  to  eradicate  this  sort 
of  vanity  as  any  experience. 

7.  Are  the  leaders  of  modern  business  to  be  found  anywhere  else 
than  in  the  applicants  from  our  schools  of  commerce,  who,  sincerely  and 
persistently,  seek  adjustment  zvith  the  conditions  of  business? 

I  am  not  sure  that  I  could  give  an  affirmative  answer  to  this  leading 
question,  but  I  believe  that  the  necessity  for  well-trained  men  is  increas- 
ing, rather  than  diminishing.  The  door  will  never  be  closed  to  the  man 
of  unusual  ability,  persistence,  ambition,  and  grit  who  gets  along  in  spite 
of  lack  of  education  or  who  educates  himself  in  spite  of  inadequate 
opportunities. 

Letter  from  an  Accountant 

1.  Characteristics. 

He  regards  theories  with  too  much  respect  and  knows  not  enough 
of  practical  things.  Frequently  he  regards  himself  as  superior  to  his 
fellow-workers,  who  have  had  no  college  education,  and  sometimes  seems 
convinced  that  he  knows  more  about  the  business  than  its  managers. 

2.  How  does  he  excel? 

In  deportment  towards  customers  and  visitors,  in  a  quick  grasp  of 
explanations  made  to  him,  and  frequently  in  being  resourceful  when 
there  are  no  precedents  to  follow. 

3.  In  zvhat  does  he  lack? 

By  all  means  his  greatest  lack  is  practical  information  concerning 
business  affairs.  He  also  frequently  lacks  a  knowledge  of  the  importance 
of  promptness  and  of  giving  attention  forthwith  to  anything  which  needs 
such  attention. 


128      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROCJRESS 

4.  A  knowledge  of  the  markets  at  home  and  abroad  and  the  cus- 
toms of  the  trade. 

5.  To  understand  foreign  tariffs,  foreign  weights,  measures,  and 
moneys  and  the  exchanges. 

6.  To  be  acquainted  with  the  technicalities  of  commercial  documents, 
such  as  bills  of  exchange,  bills  of  lading,  insurance  policies,  etc.;  and  to 
have  some  knowledge  of  commercial  law. 

7.  To  know  the  principles  of  bookkeeping  and  accountancy. 

8.  A  knowledge  of  economics  bearing  upon  commerce;  and  the  use 
of  trade  statistics. 

Tims  hastily  described  is  the  kind  of  training  needed 
for  leaders  in  business  under  the  new  conditions.  The 
schools  of  commerce  are  furnishing  it  more  or  less  com- 
pletely, more  or  less  successfully,  and  young  men  cannot 
now  get  it  in  the  way  advocated  by  the  old-fashioned  busi- 
ness man.  Doubtless  even  yet,  as  we  may  gather  from  the 
report  made  this  morning,  many  business  men  think  that 
a  minimum  of  school  training  is  desirable.  Many  of  them 
still  think  that  the  blue  overalls  and  hammer  are  tlie  mark 
of  the  engineer  rather  than  the  diploma  for  skill  in  higher 
mathematics.  Even  yet  I  think  there  are  a  few  lawyers 
who  believe  that  the  best  training  for  the  prospective 
young  lawyer  is  sweeping  out  their  offices  rather  than  pass- 
ing the  examinations  of  a  law  school.  For  the  most  part, 
however,  in  engineering  and  law  these  opinions  liave  dis- 
appeared. "So,  too,  I  believe,"  remarks  Mr.  Vanderlip,  in 
the  address  already  referred  to,  "we  will  in  time  come  to 
recognize,  though  perhaps  not  to  so  full  an  extent,  that 
the  door  to  commercial  leadership  will  be  through  doors 
of  those  colleges  and  universities  which  have  developed 
courses  especially  adapted  to  the  requirements  of  commer- 
cial life." 

A  complete  system  of  commercial  education  will  pro- 
vide in  the  lower  schools  for  the  stenography  and  bookkeep- 
ing, and  all  the  other  kinds  of  work  for  which  tliero  is  so 
widespread  a  need  for  routine  positions.  But  for  the  future 
leaders  of  business,  we  need  preparation  of  a  different  or 
at  any  rate,  an  additional  kind. 

The  courses  in  commerce  in  colleges  and  universities 
should  supplement  and  be  built  upon  properly  organized 


SCHOOLS  OF  COMMERCE  AND  BUSINESS  IMPROVEMENT  127 

which  we  have  to  work,  and  to  secure  a  knowledge  of  the 
customers  with  whom  we  are  to  deal. 

In  the  next  place,  the  leader  of  the  business  world  in 
many  cases  must  know  how  to  handle  men,  how  to  get  on 
with  those  he  does  business  with.  I  believe  it  was  Lincoln 
who  made  the  homely  remark  that  you  can  catch  more 
flies  with  molasses  than  you  can  with  vinegar.  We  have 
had  a  little  too  much  in  this  country  of  the  notion  that 
business  should  be  promoted  by  favoritism,  yet  we  cannot 
have  too  much  of  the  notion  that  business  success  depends 
upon  proper  appreciation  and  treatment  of  the  men  with 
whom  one  has  to  do  business. 

Finally,  as  has  been  repeatedly  remarked,  we  need  in 
the  conduct  of  our  home  business  truer  notions  and  better 
standards  of  the  relations  of  business  to  public  welfare. 
Now  the  imparting  of  knowledge  of  all  these  subjects  and 
training  in  the  application  of  the  principles  which  underlie 
them  are  the  work  which  the  schools  of  commerce  have  set 
themselves  to  do.  So  far  as  they  are  successful,  their  gradu- 
ates will  be  enabled  to  improve  business  practice,  estab- 
lish higher  business  ideals,  enlarge  the  volume  of  industry 
and  trade,  broaden  their  scope,  devise  new  methods,  find 
new  markets,  win  larger  personal  successes,  and  make  the 
community  more  prosperous.  So  far  as  these  schools  suc- 
ceed in  all  or  any  of  these  respects,  they  justify  their  sup- 
port. 

What  they  can  do  for  our  domestic  trade  they  can  do 
in  large  measure  to  promote  tlie  expansion  of  our  foreign 
trade.  As  illustrating  the  training  needed  by  a  man  who 
is  to  go  into  forci(/i)  trade  as  a  leader,  I  (piote  the  following 
requirements  laid  down  by  an  English  writer  as  necessary 
for  tlic  r.ritisli  merchant  doing  a  foreign  trade  to  conduct 
his  l)usiness  j)roperly : 

1.  An  effective  knowledge  of  foreign  languages. 

2.  A  knowledge  of  the  modern  methods  of  importing  or  exporting 
goods,  including  freightage  and  modes  of  transport. 

3.  A  thorf)ugh  knowledge  of  the  goods  in  which  he  deals,  and  of  the 
sciences  bearing  on  his  trade. 


126      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION   AND  RTSINESS  PROGRESS 

training  we  give  in  them,  the  more  young  men  we  turn  out 
who  are  capable  of  enhir^inj;  and  iTiii)i'(>vin^  husiiK'ss. 

Technical  knowledge,  moreover,  implies  a  knowledge 
of  our  own  resources  and  how  best  Id  utilize  them.  The 
wholesale  grocer,  or  dry-goods  man  must  know  something 
about  the  sources  of  growth  and  the  manufacture  of  the 
goods  he  handles  if  he  is  to  buy  in  the  best  markets  and  get 
the  best  products.  Indeed,  the  wholesale  grocer  and  the 
great  dry-goods  merchant  scour  the  world  now  for  this 
very  purpose. 

In  the  next  place,  the  successful  leader  in  trade  must 
have  a  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  organization  and 
administration,  and  of  social  and  industrial  economics. 
One  of  the  most  common  remarks  in  discussions  of  currency 
reform  in  recent  years  is  that  the  ordinary  banker  knows 
no  more  about  the  matter  than  other  men;  yet  the  banker, 
dealing  with  money  matters,  would  be  supposed,  according 
to  our  older  standards,  to  be  the  man  who  should  know 
most  about  such  a  subject.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  be  able 
to  pass  upon  applications  for  loans  by  scrutinizing  the 
conditions  of  personal  credit,  and  it  is  quite  another  thing 
to  be  able  to  grasp  the  principles  that  control  the  banking 
system  as  a  whole,  and  its  relations  to  the  economic  life 
of  the  people. 

Again,  in  the  matter  of  efficient  organization  we  are 
woefully  lacking.  We  have  heard  much  of  efficiency  in 
industry,  but  it  is  the  efficiency  that  comes  from  the  better 
application  of  labor.  We  need  it  as  much  if  not  inorr  in 
the  wga)uzntion  and  a<htiini>^trntion  of  business. 

A  more  efficient  organization  is  neces.*<ary  not  only  in 
the  internal  relations  of  every  individual  business  so  that 
proper  functions  will  be  assigned  to  each  department,  a 
proper  division  of  labor  obtained,  and  costs  in  all  lines 
reduced  as  far  as  possible.  Business  needs  to  be  organized 
for  advertising,  for  selling,  in  its  local  relations,  for  the 
discovery  and  utilization  of  markets,  for  expert  knowledge 
of  transportation  routes  and  rates;  for  expert  knowledge  of 
the  sources,  character,  and  methods  of  competition  against 


SCHOOLS  OF  COMMERCE  AND  BUSINESS  IMPROVEMENT  125 

sary  to  success  in  solving  these  problems?  What  must  we 
know?  What  must  we  do?  What  kind  of  men  must  we 
have?    Can  the  schools  of  commerce  train  them? 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  clear  that  we  need  to  develop 
and  apph'  technical  knowledge  to  our  natural  resources, 
and  this  the  colleges  and  universities  are  doing  abundant- 
ly. One  who  knows  anything  about  the  great  industrial 
and  commercial  success  of  Germany  must  admit  that  one 
of  the  principal  reasons  for  it  is  "the  prompt  and  intelli- 
gent use  which  has  been  made  of  the  schools."  The  Ger- 
mans have  developed  and  applied  scientific  and  technical 
knowledge  to  natural  resources  that  are  comparatively 
scanty,  and  have  achieved  a  degree  of  success  that  other- 
wise would  have  been  quite  impossible.  Our  own  business 
men  have,  in  a  half-hearted  way,  given  approval  to  what 
they  think  is  technical  and  scientific  education.  They  have 
encouraged  what  they  think  is  "practical"  education,  and 
too  often  they  have  made  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  put- 
ting a  man  into  blue  overalls  and  teaching  him  to  use  a 
hammer  and  a  file,  or  a  saw  and  plane,  was  practical  educa- 
tion. Our  practical  education  is  too  often  tlie  kind  that 
may  properly  be  described  as  training  machinists  rather 
than  engineers,  bookkeepers  rather  than  superintendents 
and  managers.  The  former  work  is  indispensable,  but  the 
situation  which  confronts  us  now  is  the  need  for  leaders 
and  organizers  in  industry  and  trade,  both  domestic  and 
foreign.  True,  these  leaders  and  organizers  need  practical, 
or,  more  correctly,  technical  knowledge.  l?ut  teclinical 
knowledge,  from  the  point  of  view  of  tlie  man  in  trade, 
means  more  than  is  commonly  supposed.  It  includes,  for 
example,  knowledge  of  commercial  geography,  a  sufficient 
knowledge  of  the  elementary  principles  of  law  to  talk  in- 
telligently about  business  contracts,  a  mastery  of  some 
foreign  language,  and  a  knowledge  of  foreign  conditions 
of  industry  and  trade.  Sucli  knowledge  for  tlie  purpose 
intended  is  technical  knowledge  as  truly  as  the  knowledge 
of  the  engineer.  These  are  all  subjects  of  treatment  in  our 
college  commercial  courses,  and  the  better  and  fuller  the 


124      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

whether  wrongly  interpreted  or  not,  has  of  late  led  to  the 
reversal  of  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  people  at  large  con- 
cerning business  and  business  methods.  A  few  months 
ago  Senator  Root,  of  New  York,  told  a  group  of  business 
men,  in  substance,  that  there  are  thousands  of  people  scat- 
tered all  over  the  country  who  believe  that  the  men  of 
business  are  robbers  of  the  public,  and  not  very  scrupulous 
in  their  dealings  with  one  another;  in  short,  that  it  is  in 
business  life  where  least  of  all  we  find  high  standards  of 
common  honesty.  His  statement  that  such  an  opinion 
prevails  widely  is  undoubtedly  correct,  although  no  one 
who  has  a  wide  acquaintance  among  business  men,  or  has 
studied  changes  in  business  practice,  can  agree  that  the 
opinion  is  as  fully  justified  as  some  people  like  to  say.  The 
fact  is  that  the  standards  of  our  business  practice  compare 
favorably  with  those  of  the  business  men  of  any  other 
country.  We  find  in  the  ranks  of  men  engaged  in  trade 
and  industry  many  of  as  high  ideals  of  personal  and  pro- 
fessional conduct,  and  with  as  great  a  self-devotion  to  the 
interests  of  the  public,  as  can  be  found  in  the  ranks  of  the 
scientists,  lawyers,  or  probably,  the  university  professors. 
Nevertheless  the  opinion  described  exists.  It  has  some  jus- 
tification and  it  points  to  the  necessity  for  a  more  conscious 
and  deliberate  promotion  of  approved  standards  in  busi- 
ness practice. 

We  are  concerned  then  in  our  economic  life  with  these 
problems :  The  more  efficient  organization  of  our  industry 
and  trade;  the  better  utilization  of  our  natural  resources; 
the  enlargement  of  our  industry  and  commerce;  the  en- 
largement of  our  home  and  foreign  markets;  the  means  of 
meeting  keener  competition  both  at  home  and  abroad,  not 
only  to  supply  our  home  markets,  but  to  secure  entry  into 
foreign  markets;  the  adoption  of  standards  of  business 
practice  which  will  satisfy  the  public,  and  the  adoption 
of  an  attitude  or  relationship  to  the  public  welfare  which 
will  satisfy  the  people  at  large  that  their  natural  inheri- 
tance is  not  being  exploited  for  the  benefit  of  the  few. 
What  are  the  conditions,  or  some  of  the  conditions,  neces- 


SCHOOLS  OF  COMMERCE  AND  BUSINESS  IMPROVEMENT  123 

the  rapid  diminution  of  the  resources  that  nature  has  so 
abundantly  given  us.  ~Sot,  indeed,  that  we  have  reached 
an^'thing  like  the  development  of  our  resources  common  in 
the  countries  of  the  Old  World,  but  that  we  have  suddenly- 
seen  with  a  shock  that  the  bountifulness  of  opportunity 
was  not  permanent.  To  use  a  homelj'  phrase,  we  have 
been  skimming  the  milk  of  our  natural  resources  and  liv- 
ing on  the  cream.  We  did  not  skim  too  deeply;  so  the 
cream  still  rises;  yet  after  all,  what  is  left  is  not  so  rich, 
or  at  any  rate  not  so  easily  gotten,  as  that  which  was 
within  the  reach  of  our  predecessors.  Our  economic  policy 
has  stimulated  our  manufactures  until  in  many  lines  they 
over-supply  our  home  market,  and  competition  has  been 
pushed  to  the  point  of  warfare  and  resulting  monopoly. 
Even  the  alleged  economics  of  monopoly  and  combination, 
while  in  some  cases  reducing  prices  or  preventing  their 
rise,  have  not  diminished  the  supply  of  goods  or  made  less 
keen  the  sense  of  possible  failure  due  to  an  output  beyond 
our  absorption  without  a  reduction  of  profits  for  the  maker. 
This  over-rapid  development,  besides  making  competition 
at  home  more  ruthless,  and  leading  to  the  establishment 
of  those  vast  monopolies  known  by  the  various  names  of 
trade  combinations,  trusts,  combines,  etc.,  has  impressed 
upon  us  still  more  the  necessity  of  enlarging  our  foreign 
trade. 

At  the  same  time  our  population  has  increased  by 
leaps  and  bounds.  The  number  of  people  seeking  now  to 
put  their  buckets  in  tlie  well  is  far  larger  tlian  can  get 
around  its  rim.  We  are  far  from  crowded,  as  that  term 
would  be  understood  in  Europe.  There  is  room  for  mil- 
lions more,  but  not  under  the  conditions  of  industry  and 
trade  which  liave  hitlierto  prevailed.  The  increased  crowd- 
ing makes  more  necessary  greater  regard  for  the  interests 
and  rights  of  one  another,  and  impresses  u])on  us  more 
clearly  the  need  not  only  for  new  standards  in  our  business 
relations,  but  akso  in  the  relation  of  business  in  general 
to  what  is  commonly  described  as  the  public  welfare. 

The  contem]>t  for  public  opinion  and  the  ruthlessness 
of  competition,  and  the  general  attitude  of  business  men, 


122      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

our  banking,  our  sliipping,  our  finance,  and  in  large  meas- 
ure, prescribe  the  regulations  under  which  we  should  do 
foreign  business  at  all. 

The  training,  character,  and  ideals  of  our  business 
men  of  the  past  generation  reflect  the  conditions  that  have 
been  described.  In  some  respects  they  have  been  the  ablest 
men  in  the  world.  The  stimulus  of  great  opportunity  de- 
veloped an  unequaled  native  ability  in  certain  respects, 
which  made  our  business  men  contemptuous  of  the  slower, 
more  exacting  and  more  careful  methods  of  their  foreign 
brethren.  They  called  for  no  special  training  for  business 
life,  because  no  special  training  was  needed  to  cope  with 
the  difficulties  they  met.  No  special  training  is  necessary 
against  competitors  to  fill  one's  bucket  with  water  at  a 
well  whose  rim  is  large  enough  to  give  plenty  of  room  to 
all  who  liave  buckets.  These  conditions  developed  a  group 
of  men  self-reliant,  daring,  contemptuous  of  restraint, 
virile  in  the  pursuit  of  their  own  ends,  careless  of  refined 
methods,  and  without  a  proper  appreciation  of  their  duties 
either  to  the  existing  public  at  large,  or  to  coming  genera- 
tions. That  is  to  say,  our  business  methods  and  policy 
have  been  wasteful,  crude  and,  in  a  waj",  harsh.  They  have 
wasted  the  natural  resources  which  are  the  heritage  of  the 
whole  people;  they  have  developed  too  large  a  contempt 
for  the  interests  of  the  public,  and  too  little  sense  of  obli- 
gation to  tlie  public,  and  have  not  always  drawn  finely  in 
their  business  relations  distinctions  of  honesty  wliich  in 
personal  relations  were  scrupulously  observed. 

The  past  generation  has  seen  a  rapid  change  in  the 
situation  thus  roughly  outlined.  Less  than  fifteen  years 
ago  the  world  saw  witli  astonishment  our  impetuous  inroad 
into  the  field  of  foreign  trade.  We  ourselves  felt,  as  our 
people  had  never  felt  before,  tlie  stirring  impulse  of  the 
sense  that  we  were  a  world  power,  not  ony  in  a  naval, 
military,  and  diplomatic  way,  but  in  the  field  of  trade.  We 
needed  an  outlet  and  we  felt  ourselves  industrially  and 
commercially  strong  enough  to  seek  it.  Within  that  short 
period  we  have  awakened  to  a  realizing  consciousness  of 


SCHOOLS  OF  COMMERCE  AND  BUSINESS  IMPROVEMENT  121 

could  supply  all  that  we  ourselves  consumed  and  have  a 
surplus  to  sell  without  getting  something  in  return.  In 
other  words,  we  have  followed  persistently  the  policy  of 
the  development  of  home  industry  in  manufactures,  and 
have  seen  with  satisfaction  the  upspringing  of  industrial 
activity  in  almost  every  line  of  human  effort.  Here  again, 
as  on  the  agricultural  side,  success  was  comparatively 
easy.  A  market  of  indefinite  and  growing  extent  was  as- 
sured in  the  first  instance  for  pretty  nearly  everyone  who 
undertook  to  go  into  manufacturing  or  into  trade.  We 
did  not  need  to  bother  ourselves  in  the  early  days  about 
seeking  an  outlet  for  our  surplus  manufactured  products, 
for  we  had  none.  Our  manufacturers  and  merchants  had 
more  than  they  could  do  in  supplying  the  markets  which 
a  growing  population  with  boundless  natural  resources 
furnished  them. 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  under  such  circum- 
stances the  character  of  the  business  developed  should 
hardly  accord  with  conditions  that  have  arisen  since;  that 
the  standards  and  ideals  of  business  conduct  developed 
under  such  a  system  should  be  looked  on  askance  in  the 
different  regime  that  prevails  today;  that  men  still  living 
who  have  succeeded  under  such  conditions  should  not  see 
that  their  success  is  not  an  assurance  that  others,  who 
lack  proper  preparation,  in  the  future  will  succeed  equally 
well,  or  that  the  relation  of  business  to  the  public  and  the 
responsibilities  of  business  men  to  the  public  welfare 
should  in  time  become  very  different. 

With  reference  to  our  foreign  trade  and  its  methods 
under  the  conditions  which  have  been  described  as  pre- 
vailing until  within  the  last  twenty-five  or  thirty  years, 
it  may  be  said  that  we  had  no  foreign  trade  methods.  Re- 
garding the  country  as  a  whole,  our  position  was  that  of 
the  lucky  farmer  who  had  a  larger  crop  than  he  needed 
for  his  own  consumption  and  had  sometliiiig  to  sell  to 
a  neighbor,  who,  without  any  effort  of  his,  stood  at  liis 
door  ready  to  buy.  No  attention  was  given  to  the  princi- 
ples of  foreign  excliange.     We  have  let  the  foreigners  do 


120      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

The  principal  work  of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
during  the  first  century  and  more  of  their  existence  was 
the  conquest  of  the  natural  resources  of  the  continent.  We 
have  been  blessed  with  abundant  resources.  We  have  had 
and  still  have  a  sparce  population  scattered  over  an  im- 
mense fertile  territory,  yielding  to  a  little  labor  far  larger 
results  than  the  greater  efforts  of  men  in  older  communi- 
ties could  hope  to  get.  Until  a  short  time  after  the  Civil 
W^ar  we  were  almost  exclusively  an  agricultural  country. 
Our  wealth  consisted  almost  exclusively  in  agricultural 
products.  Comparatively  speaking,  industry  was  little  de- 
veloped, and  our  foreign  trade  for  a  country  of  our  extent 
was  negligible.  W^e  contented  ourselves  principally  with 
exporting  raw  materials  which  were  secured  abundantly 
by  slight  labor.  We  aimed  to  be  self-sufficing,  in  the  sense 
that  we  discouraged  attempts  to  supply  our  wants  from 
other  countries.  Then,  too,  there  was  plenty  of  elbow 
room.  Every  man  could  push  on  to  his  individual  success 
without  crowding  his  neighbor;  the  rules  of  the  game  of 
competition,  so  to  speak,  it  was  scarcely  necessary  to  ob- 
serve. Indeed,  many  scarcely  realized  their  existence,  for 
there  is  little  danger  of  fouling  in  a  race  in  which  the 
track  is  so  broad  that  the  competitors  scarcely  come  into 
contact  with  one  another.  Moreover,  there  was  enough  for 
all.  However  great  the  success  of  one,  another  was  not 
excluded  from  securing  at  least  a  comfortable  livelihood. 
Under  such  conditions  not  only  was  it  not  necessary  to 
devote  much  attention  to  preventing  possible  injury  of 
one  competitor  by  another,  but  it  was  also  unnecessary 
to  lay  down  rules  concerning  the  relation  of  individual  ef- 
fort to  public  welfare. 

Our  economic  policy,  deliberately  adopted,  accorded 
with  the  conditions  described.  We  set  our  faces  towards 
the  development  of  home  industry.  We  adopted  a  system 
which,  as  we  hoped,  protected  us  against  the  competition 
of  the  people  of  other  countries  in  lines  where  we  thought 
ourselves  weak,  for  the  purpose,  as  has  been  repeatedly 
said,  of  supplying  all  our  own  wants;  as  if,  forsooth,  we 


Schools  of  Commerce  and  Improvement  of  Business 

David    Kinley 
Director  of  the  Courses  in  Business  Administration,  University  of  Illinois 

Some  years  ago  the  Honorable  Frank  A.  Vanderlip, 
formerly  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  now  Presi- 
dent of  the  National  City  Bank  of  New  York,  made  these 
remarks:  "With  the  limitless  wealth  of  resources  which 
we  have  had  in  America,  the  successful  conduct  of  a  busi- 
ness enterprise  has  been  a  comparatively  easy  matter. 
Nothing  short  of  egregious  error  has  been  likely  to  lead 
to  failure.  Any  ordinary  mistake  in  judging  conditions 
or  in  the  application  of  principles  has,  as  a  rule,  been 
obliterated  by  the  rapidity  of  the  country's  growth  and 
the  extent  of  its  industrial  and  commercial  development. 
If  some  of  the  men  who  have  made  notable  commercial 
successes  had  been  forced  to  face  the  harder  conditions 
that  exist  in  the  old  world,  the  measure  of  their  success 
might  have  been  very  different.  Had  they  been  confronted 
by  a  situation  where  population  was  ])ressing  upon  the 
means  of  subsistence,  where  all  the  soil  Avas  under  culti- 
vation, where  the  mineral  resources  were  meager,  and 
where  there  was  lacking  the  wealth  of  the  virgin  forests, 
they  would  have  needed  greater  abilities  and  better  trained 

faculties  in  order  to  achieve  marked  success 

One  should  not  lose  siglit  of  the  fact  that  the  lavishness 
of  opportunity  has  brought  commercial  success  to  many 
wlio  liave  come  into  (he  field  illy  prepared  and  with  small 
ability." 

TIh'sc  statements  describe  a  situalion  I  lie  full  impor- 
tance of  VN'liicli  few  of  our  business  men  fully  realize.  Too 
many  of  them  are  accustomed  to  depreciate  the  importance 
of  ediie.'ition  for  business  life  on  the  ground  (hat  they  have 
gotten  on  widiout  it.  As  has  just  been  remarked,  however, 
it  was  comparatively  easy  to  get  on  without  it  as  things 
have  been. 

119 


118      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

From  all  these  letters  from  prominent  and  successful 
men  in  different  walks  of  life,  you  may  see  that  they  think 
the  college  graduate  should  have  a  tremendous  advantage 
over  the  non-graduate,  provided  he  realizes  that  certain 
fundamentals  are  to  be  taken  into  consideration,  besides 
that  which  may  be  learned  from  books. 

These  letters  bring  out  certain  traits  and  these  I  now 
summarize. 

It  seems  to  be  the  judgment  of  the  business  world 
that  among  applicants  for  employment  from  our  colleges 
there  appear  the  following  negative  traits  of  character: 

1.  Impatience  to  succeed 

2.  Lacking  in  persistence 

3.  Tendency  to  snobbishness 

4.  Lacking  in  industry 

5.  Lacking  in  thrift 

6.  Lacking  in  technical  training  (has  more  than  old 
college  type) 

7.  Lacking  in  appreciation  of  time 

8.  Easily  discouraged 

Upon  the  other  hand,  it  is  most  encouraging  to  note 
from  these  judges  of  employees  that  the  college  graduate 
has: 

1.  More  concentration 

2.  Knows  where  and  how  to  look  for  information 

3.  Reasons  from  one  step  to  another 

4.  Is  more  adaptable 

5.  Is  more  conscientious 

6.  Has  keener  appreciation  of  the  duties  of  life  and 
its  responsibilities 

7.  Is  able  to  solve  more  difficult  problems 

8.  Has  higher  ethical  and  moral  standards 

9.  Has  larger  view  of  life 

My  trial  balance  would  be  the  new  college  boy  is 
adaptable  to  the  place  he  seeks  and  his  problem  of  adjust- 
ment is  on  the  way  to  solution. 


COLLEGE   GRADUATE   A   BUSINESS  TYRO  117 

2.  Where  college  graduates  have  worked  their  way  through  college, 
especially  by  canvassing  during  vacation  periods,  they  have  taken  to  the 
business  more  readily  and  get  satisfactory  returns  more  quickly. 

3.  When  a  college  graduate  who  has  had  no  selling  or  business 
experience  consults  us,  we  advise  him  to  seek  an  opening  where  he  will 
get  general  business  experience  and  have  a  chance  to  learn  the  ordinary 
methods  of  procedure  in  business  life.  If  a  young  man  would  spend  from 
three  to  five  years  gaining  such  experience  he  will,  with  the  added  ma- 
turity, be  much  better  qualified  to  make  a  success  in  selling  insurance. 

4.  As  in  everything  else  the  man  must  be  adapted  to  the  business 
temperamentally  and  otherwise.  In  our  opinion  there  are  many  young 
men  with  brains  and  ability  who  for  temperamental  or  other  reasons  are 
unable  to  adapt  themselves  to  the  requirements  of  the  business. 

These  points  together  with  the  general  observation  that  a  college 
man  finds  it  difficult  to  start  where  his  friends  who  did  not  go  to  college 
started  four  years  before  would  seem  to  cover  all  that  occurs  to  me  at 
this  moment. 

From  the  President  of  a  Bank 

What  are  the  characteristics  of  the  young  vian  applying  for  work,  who 
has  had  some  business  education  at  college  or  university  f 

He  is  not  hurt  by  such  education  but  is  apt  to  think  he  knows  more 
than  he  really  does  and  has  something  to  unlearn  usually. 

How  does  he  excel? 

By  being  able  to  bring  a  partially  trained  mind  to  bear  upon  the  work. 

In  what  does  he  lack? 

Nothing,  except  perhaps  the  experience  of  having  to  work  for  his 
food  and  clothing,  which  a  boy  of  the  same  age  who  has  not  been  to 
college  has  had. 

//  he  has  moral  stamina,  does  he  eventually  advance  the  standards 
and  efficiency  of  your  business? 

Yes. 

Is  he  desired  as  a  nezu  employee  or  are  yoji  indifferent  to  his  coming? 

Very  few  enter  the  banking  business,  and  as  a  rule  we  do  not  seek 
them. 

Does  his  academic  training  need  only  the  technical  training  of  your 
hank  to  make  him  the  new  business  man? 

No,  nothing  but  actual  experience  of  failure  and  success  make  a 
business  man. 

Is  his  spirit  towards  his  job  right? 

Yes,  in  most  cases. 

Are  the  leaders  of  modern  business  to  be  found  anywhere  else  than 
in  the  applicants  from  our  schools  of  commerce,  who  sincerely  and  per- 
sistently seek  adjustment  with  the  conditions  of  business? 

Some  of  them  come  "from  the  ranks." 


116      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

survival  of  the  fittest  will  carry  the  college  man  of  right  ability  far 
beyond  the  grammar  or  high-school  graduate,  unless  the  latter  is  of 
exceptional  mentality. 

Letter  from  a  Manufacturer 

I  favor  the  college  man  in  business,  for  I  believe  he  begins  to  work 
with  a  keener  appreciation  of  the  duties  of  life  and  its  responsibilities 
and  that  he  enters  into  his  work  with  a  great  deal  of  zeal  and  enthusiasm 
in  consequence,  which  must  of  necessity  result  in  success. 

The  simple  fact  that  a  young  man  has  passed  through  a  college  or 
university  is  evidence  in  itself  that  he  has  ability  and  application ;  that 
he  is  not  an  unknown  quantity,  for  he  has  already  made  a  record 
that  is  recognized. 

The  college  boy  or  man  has  learned  one  thing  that  I  feel  is  all 
important  and  that  is  application.  My  experience  and  observation  teaches 
me  that  the  one  thing  in  particular  that  most  boys  or  young  men  lack 
on  entering  a  business  life  is  application,  or  perhaps  it  might  be  better  to 
say  concentration  on  their  job,  and  I  firmly  believe  that  a  college  training 
is  of  very  material  benefit  in  correcting  this. 

Adjustments  Involved  on  the  Part  of  a  College  Man  in  Entering 
THE  Life  Insurance  Business 

1.  To  try  out  and  true  up  the  application  of  his  training  in  college 
to  the  real  problems  of  life,  which  involve  economic,  social,  and  moral 
factors.  To  take  the  qualifications  involved  in  "making  the  team"  and 
use  them  in  making  a  "touch  down"  in  real  life  against  the  opposition  of 
ignorance  and  indifference  as  they  appear  in  connection  with  the  human 
problems  involved  in  life  insurance  service. 

2.  If  the  college  man  has  neglected  to  seriously  consider  the  problem 
involved  in  becoming  a  man,  who  is  to  be  admitted  to  society,  with  all 
of  its  privileges  and  responsibilities,  his  first  big  adjustment  will  be  to 
solve  this  problem  for  himself.  For  one  cannot  hope  to  be  of  service 
in  helping  the  other  fellow  solve  the  problem,  if  he  has  not  solved  his 
own. 

3.  To  appreciate  that  success  in  life,  and  especially  in  the  business 
of  life  insurance,  depends  upon  self -management,  plus  the  proper  use 
of  time-  as  it  is  valued  in  real  life. 

Letter   from   an   Insurance  Firm 

I.  The  average  college  graduate  who  has  had  no  previous  business 
or  selling  experience,  is  as  a  rule  not  adapted  to  early  success  as  an 
insurance  salesman.  Progress  is  so  slow  and  returns  are  so  small  that 
he  does  not  stay  with  it.  How  many  would  ultimately  succeed  if  they 
could  be  carried  along  it  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  state. 


COLLEGE   GRADUATE   A   BUSINESS   TYRO  115 

cause  of  their  having  had  mental  training,  they  progress  much  more 
rapidly  than  the  man  who  begins  with  an  untrained  mind.  The  opportuni- 
ties for  such  young  men  are  many.  There  never  has  been  a  time  in  the 
last  twenty-five  years  but  what  our  house  alone  could  take  on  a  score  or 
more  of  such  men  and  where  they  have  moral  stamina,  good  common 
sense  and  are  tireless  workers  and  backed  by  their  academic  training, 
their  success  is  assured.  Unfortunately,  all  of  the  above  combinations 
are  seldom  found  in  a  man. 

I  think  one  of  the  principal  difficulties  is  that  the  process  of  develop- 
ment necessitates  the  beginning  at  the  bottom  and  the  process  is  too  slow 
for  the  average  college  man.  With  such  impressions  it  is  impossible  for 
one  to  have  the  right  spirit  towards  his  job. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  a  large  per  cent  of  our  staff  is  made  up 
of  men  who  have  had  little,  if  any,  college  experience.  The  young  man 
with  the  spur  of  necessity  prodding  him  and  with  habits  of  industry  and 
thrift  well  established  and  full  of  strength  of  body  as  well  as  mind  is 
the  natural  one  to  make  progress. 

Letter  from  a  Manufacturer 

I  am  in  receipt  of  your  letter  in  regard  to  the  college  man  in  busi- 
ness. First,  he  excels  in  his  general  knowledge  of  men  and  affairs.  He 
lacks  the  technical  training  in  the  industry  and  for  the  first  six  months 
must  necessarily  spend  all  of  his  time  in  the  acquiring  of  it.  If  he  is  of 
the  right  moral  stamina  and  is  with  Us  at  the  end  of  six  months,  he  will 
start  to  grow  and  will  grow  far  beyond  and  in  a  shorter  time  than  the 
fellow  who  comes  in  with  the  high-school  training. 

I  am  speaking  now  from  the  distributing  end  of  the  business,  where 
in  my  judgment  the  college  graduate  should  excel,  and  also  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  superintendent  of  a  manufacturing  plant.  I  do  not  con- 
sider it  against  the  college  man  if  at  the  end  of  six  montlis  he  does  not 
stay  with  the  industry  with  which  he  first  attaches  himself  upon  gradua- 
tion. 

The  botanist  Gray  defined  a  weed  as  a  plant  out  of  place.  Too  many 
men  are  weeds  in  industry,  who  would  become  roses  if  placed  in  the 
right  rose  garden.  Too  many  college  graduates  accept  the  first  job  which 
is  offered,  whether  they  are  fitted  by  nature  or  talents  to  the  position ; 
that  such  men  should  change  after  their  first  six  months  in  an  industry, 
if  they  or  their  employers  find  they  would  be  better  somewhere  else,  in 
the  writer's  judgment,  should  not  1)e  charged  against  the  college  man. 

Too  many  of  our  generation  have  forced  themselves  to  fit  in  square 
holes,  where  they  would  have  done  better  in  round  ones,  had  they  been 
in  position  to  make  a  better  choice  at  the  beginning  of  tlieir  business 
careers. 

I  am  a  hearty  believer  in  the  college  man  in  industry.  The  natural 
jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  fellow  who  starts  from  the  grammar  or  high 
school  for  the  college  man  must  always  be  met  with,  but  the  law  of  the 


114      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

to  grasp  details  with  the  result  that  he  was  not  forced  to  leave  details 
entirely  to  the  man  under  him,  and  while  in  many  instances  the  modern 
way  of  doing  business  is  for  the  man  at  the  helm  to  turn  details  over 
to  his  subordinates,  still  if  he  has  a  mind  trained  for  details  it  is  of  great 
benefit  to  him.  This  might  answer  your  question  "How  does  he  excel?" 
This,  of  course,  is  an  isolated  case  where  a  man  has  an  opportunity  of 
being  placed  immediately  at  the  head  of  a  business  and  probably  would  not 
apply  to  the  men  you  are  thinking  of.  In  our  own  particular  line  of 
business  we  have  noted  at  least  fifty  to  seventy-five  men  who  started  at 
the  bottom  with  us,  who  are  today  earning  either  with  us  or  someone 
else,  salaries  of  from  five  to  ten  thousand  a  year,  and  they  had  no  college 
training.  I  personally  believe  the  whole  matter  rests  with  the  individual. 
We  have  had  a  number  of  young  men  graduates  from  college  apply  for 
positions,  all  of  whom  remained  with  us  a  short  time  only,  the  difficulty 
being  they  are  not  willing  to  start  at  the  bottom  and  work  up  through  the 
ranks;  this  is  one  objection  that  I  have  noted  in  college  men.  He  feels, 
so  to  speak,  a  little  above  the  average  fellow  and  believes  it  is  due  him 
to  start  at  the  top,  with  the  result  that  those  whom  I  have  come  in  contact 
with  are  at  the  age  of  forty  still  working  in  minor  positions,  because 
they  have  jumped  from  pillar  to  post  in  an  eflfort  to  get  at  the  top  quickly. 
This  is  an  answer  to  your  question,  "What  does  he  lack?" 

As  to  the  other  questions.  I  can  only  repeat  that  from  my  personal 
experience  it  rests  entirely  with  the  individual.  We  have  no  objections 
to  employing  college  men.  I  only  speak  with  reference  to  the  retail  mer- 
chandise line  on  State  street,  and  I  believe  if  you  will  make  an  investi- 
gation, you  will  find  that  ninety  per  cent  of  the  department  store  men 
who  are  making  from  five,  ten,  and  fifteen  thousand  a  year  started  at  the 
bottom  on  salaries  of  from  Wve  to  six  dollars  a  week — or  a  little  higher^ 
say  twelve  or  fifteen  dollars  weekly.  In  every  case  they  have  been  willing 
to  work  along  for  five  or  ten  years  until  they  have  been  gradually  ad- 
vanced. I  have  often  remarked  upon  this  condition  and  wondered  why 
so  few  of  our  great  department  stores  are  conducted  by  college  men.  I 
refer  particularly  to  department  managers,  superintendents,  and  like  posi- 
tions. 

From  a  Wholesaler 

We  have  comparatively  few  applications  from  men  who  have  had 
some  business  education  at  college  or  university.  Occasionally  a  young 
man  who  has  graduated  from  college  or  university  makes  application  with 
the  idea  that  he  is  competent  to  do  almost  anything;  therefore  does 
not  expect  to  begin  at  the  bottom  and  work  up.  Such  applicants  must  of 
necessity  be  turned  down. 

Occasionally  we  find  a  man  having  a  college  education  who  is  ready 
to  take  hold  as  a  beginner  and  is  perfectly  willing  to  take  his  chances  on 
the    future.     Almost  without   exception   such   men    make   good,    and   be- 


COLLEGE   GR.AJ)UATE   A   BUSINESS   TYRO  113 

4.  Does  he  advance  the  standards  of  efficiency? 

His  influence  eventually  becomes  beneficial  to  the  organization  of 
which  he  is  a  part. 

5.  Desirability  as  a  new  employee. 

He  is  more  desirable  than  one  who  has  not  had  his  training  and  will 
more  rapidly  become  expert  in  the  performance  of  his  duties  than  will 
an  employee  who  has  not  had  the  benefit  of  college  education. 

6.  Technical  training  the  one  need. 

I  should  say  that  he  needs  more  than  the  mere  technical  training  of 
the  house  by  which  he  is  engaged  to  fit  him  as  a  business  man.  He  needs 
to  mix  with  business  men  and  acquire  their  point  of  view  in  matters 
that  are  common  to  all  lines  of  business. 

7.  Spirit  towards  his  job. 

The  spirit  of  the  college  man  towards  his  job  is  not  very  diflferent 
from  that  of  employees  who  have  not  had  college  advantages.  He  may 
have  a  higher  conception  of  the  duty  he  owes  to  his  employer  and  may 
be  quicker  to  discriminate  where  nice  questions  of  conduct  and  duty  are 
involved. 

8.  Leaders  found  in  the  applicants  from  schools  of  commerce. 
Unquestionably    the    graduates    of    schools    of    commerce    eventually 

become  the  leaders  in  the  lines  with  which  they  affiliate,  assuming  of 
course  that  they  have  the  elementary  requirements  of  perseverance,  indus- 
try, and  integrity. 

I  can  hardly  think  of  further  comment  to  make  which  would  be  of 
use.  If  the  graduate  of  the  school  of  commerce  can  be  convinced  that 
the  preparation  which  he  has  received  at  college  is  only  partial  and  does 
not  turn  him  out  a  finished  product,  and  that  his  finishing  is  to  be  accom- 
plished in  the  business  with  which  he  engages,  his  success  will  be  much 
quicker  and  much   more  pronounced. 

In  the  accounting  business,  we  find  that  graduates  of  schools  of 
commerce,  who  seek  to  enter  our  line  of  work,  are  prone  to  believe  that 
they  have  learned  from  books  a  very  great  deal  which  is  only  to  be 
acquired  by  experience.  It  is  true  that  all  they  have  learned  from  books 
is  useful,  but  in  this  particular  line  of  work  experience  without  book 
learning  is  very  much  more  valuable  than  book  learning  without  experi- 
ence. 

Letter  from  a  Large  Retailer 

Inasmuch  as  I  did  not  attend  college,  I  fear  that  my  answers  to 
the  questions  submitted  would  be  of  no  particular  benefit  to  you.  I 
entered  business  at  the  age  of  nineteen  and  have  been  actively  engaged 
since  that  time.  My  brother,  general  manager  of  our  business,  spent 
two  years  at  Cornell.  We  have  noticed  since  he  has  been  with  us  during 
the  last  four  years  that  his  academic  and  technical  training  have  been  of 
particular  benefit  to  him  pertaining  to  details.    His  mind  has  been  trained' 


SCHOOLS  OF  COMMERCE  AND  BUSINESS  IMPROVEMENT  129 

and  equipped  commercial  high  schools  and  secondary 
schools  of  still  lower  grade.  It  is  the  province  of  the  uni- 
versity courses  to  train,  if  I  may  say  so,  the  race  horses  of 
business  life,  the  leaders — not  those  whose  time  is  to  be 
absorbed  in  routine.  That  this  can  be  done  is  the  belief 
of  a  growing  number  of  business  men,  and  is  already  prac- 
tically an  accepted  doctrine  in  higher  educational  circles. 
If  our  home  industry  and  trade  are  to  expand  and  improve 
under  the  harder  conditions  that  now  confront  our  business 
men,  it  can  do  so  only  under  the  leadership  of  trained  men, 
and,  as  I  remarked  a  few  moments  ago,  they  cannot  get 
their  training  in  the  offices  or  the  shops.  The  apprentice 
system  has  passed  away.  No  young  man  can  get  an  ade- 
quate idea  of  the  organization  of  a  whole  business  or  its 
methods  in  various  departments  by  going  into  one  of  these 
departments.  How  much  banking  does  a  boy  learn  who 
goes  into  a  large  city  bank?  He  is  merely  a  tooth  in  a  cog 
of  a  great  machine.  The  managers  and  directors  and  presi- 
dents of  great  business  concerns  have  no  time  to  teach  boys. 
For  these  reasons  it  has  become  necessary  for  the 
universities  to  provide  the  courses  of  training  in  commerce 
similar  to  those  which  liave  already  become  well  estab- 
lished in  engineering  and  in  law.  It  is  the  purpose  of  these 
courses  to  send  to  the  business  houses  young  men  without, 
indeed,  the  experience  of  their  office  boys — and  also  witli- 
out  their  assurance — but  with  a  knowledge  of  the  princi- 
ples and  to  some  extent  of  the  practices  that  prevail  in 
their  business.  They  come  with  a  knowledge  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  business  organization,  of  accountancy,  of  elemen- 
tary law,  of  finance,  of  money  and  credit,  of  markets, 
routes  and  methods  and  rates  of  transportation  and  com- 
munication, and  other  subjects,  according  to  the  character 
of  the  business  they  aim  to  enter.  Now  it  is  true  that  in 
every  calling,  be  it  preaching  or  banking,  a  certain  amount 
of  what  is  called  practical  experience  is  necessary  for  tlie 
highest  success.  But  practical  experience,  after  all,  is 
only  the  application  of  known  principles  to  specific  condi- 


130      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

tions.  It  is  foolish  to  say  that  the  highest  success  can  be 
attained  by  the  person  who  tries  to  make  this  practical 
application  of  known  principles  to  specific  conditions  with- 
out knowing  the  principles  to  begin  with.  Such  a  view 
may  be  likened  in  an  extreme  way  to  the  claim  that  the 
porter  of  a  parlor  car  could  build  one  because  his  duties 
make  him  familiar  with  its  internal  arrangements.  It  took 
a  Newton  to  give  us  great  laws  of  the  universe,  yet  Newton 
could  not  add  a  column  of  figures  correctly.  It  was  Napo- 
leon who  made  anew  the  science  of  warfare,  yet  it  is  ques- 
tionable whether  Napoleon  could  have  fired  a  cannon  and 
hit  the  mark.  In  other  words,  the  great  need  for  business 
expansion  at  home  and  abroad  today  is  leadership  of  a 
trained  and  broad-minded  kind ;  leadership  with  organizing 
ability  and  wide  knowledge.  This  is  true,  too,  of  the  lead- 
ers of  divisions  and  departments  as  well  as  of  entire  busi- 
ness establishments.  The  foreign  representative  of  an 
export  house  must  know  his  language,  must  be  familiar 
with  the  habits  and  point  of  view,  if  you  like,  the  psychol- 
ogy, of  the  people  he  deals  with;  with  their  laws,  tariffs, 
ways  of  doing  business,  trade  routes,  and  a  variety  of  other 
things  which  can  be  obtained  only  by  preliminary  study  in 
the  college  course.  Here,  then,  is  the  function  of  the  uni- 
versity courses  of  commerce  in  the  improvement  and  ex- 
pansion of  our  trade.  It  is  to  furnish  courses  of  study  that 
will  train  men  for  the  more  important  positions  of  leader- 
ship in  every  division  and  branch  of  trade. 

But  the  universities  have  another  duty  in  training 
the  young  men  of  the  coming  generation  of  business  men. 
Wliile  giving  them  the  training  and  knowledge  necessary 
to  their  personal  success  as  business  leaders,  and  neces- 
sary to  the  improvement  and  expansion  of  business,  the 
university  colleges  and  schools  of  commerce  must  also  teach 
tliein  to  sot  \^)  liighci-  ethical  standards  in  business.  There 
has  been  in  our  business  life  in  the  past  too  much  of  the 
thought  that  everyone  should  take  care  of  himself,  what- 
ever tlie  consequence  to  his  competitors  or  to  the  public. 


SCHOOLS  OF  COMMERCE  AND  BUSINESS  IMPROVEMENT  131 

We  need  to  develop  in  our  young  men  imagination  and 
the  spirit  of  investigation,  the  capacity  and  desire  for  gen- 
erous leadership,  and  a  high  sense  of  moral  obligation  to 
their  fellow  business  men  and  to  the  public  at  large.  It 
is  often  said  that  the  ideal  of  the  American  business  man 
differs  from  that  of  his  European  competitor  in  this  way. 
It  is  the  ambition  of  the  American  to  build  the  biggest 
and  most  powerful  business  of  its  kind  in  the  world.  He 
has  an  ambition,  not  for  the  money  that  is  involved,  but 
for  the  power  that  that  money  represents.  His  European 
confrere,  on  the  other  hand,  often  says  that  his  ambition 
is  to  build  a  business  which  will  yield  him  a  respectable 
competence  so  that  he  can  retire  while  his  mental  powers 
are  still  unimpaired,  and  devote  himself  to  a  life  of  culture, 
leisure,  and  public  service.  Doubtless,  we  need  men  with 
botli  ideals,  but  we  certainly  need  more  of  the  latter  kind 
than  we  have  had  in  the  past.  It  is  true  that  there  are 
leaders  in  business  who  care  as  little  about  their  personal 
reward  as  do  many  men  engaged  in  scientific  research. 
They  are  devoted  to  the  attainment  of  certain  ideals,  com- 
mercial ideals  it  is  true,  yet  ideals.  Their  ambition  is  to 
expand  and  develop  business  so  as  to  discover  new  fields 
of  operation,  new  and  better  methods,  and  to  perfect  an 
organization  or  system  which  will  stand  as  models  for 
tlieir  competitors  and  successors.  This  is  the  spirit  of  the 
investigator  and  the  public  servant.  It  is  no  more  likely 
to  miss  the  goal  of  rendering  public  service  than  is  that  of 
the  man  who  devotes  himself  in  his  laboratory  or  his  study 
to  an  investigation  which  brings  no  personal  reward  aside 
from  the  distinction  of  telling  the  world  something  new. 
To  put  the  matter  in  another  way,  our  university  courses 
in  commerce  are  aiding  business  by  training  our  young  men 
in  what  President  Hadley  has  called  the  sense  of  trustee- 
ship in  business.  The  development  of  this  sense  of  obliga- 
tion to  the  public,  the  acceptance  of  the  ideas  that  personal 
success  in  business  is  to  be  best  secured  by  conducting 
business  as  a  service  to  the  public,  and  that  success  which 


132      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

is  achieved  by  the  exploitation  of  the  public  is  not  a  worthy 
success,  is  one  of  the  most  important  needs  in  American 
life.  The  university  schools  of  commerce  are  training 
young  men  to  this  ideal.  They  are  turning  out  graduates 
who  will  not  regard  a  railroad  as  their  private  property, 
but  who  will  know  from  their  study  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  economics  and  of  railway  transportation  that 
a  railroad  is  a  public  belonging  in  a  very  important  sense, 
and  must  be  managed  in  ways  that  will  promote  the  public 
welfare  as  well  as  the  private  interests  of  the  men  who 
have  invested  their  capital  in  it. 

To  teach  how  to  achieve  personal  business  success 
through  service  to  the  public  rather  than  by  exploiting  the 
public  is  the  aim  of  our  university  schools  of  commerce; 
the  studies  relating  to  business  are  their  subject-matter ; 
training  in  the  principles  which  underlie  and  constitute 
these  studies  and  in  the  application  of  these  principles 
to  practice,  is  their  method.  Their  result,  in  the  measure 
of  their  success,  will  be  better  business,  bigger  business, 
larger-minded  business  men,  and  a  more  prosperous  and 
better-ordered  community  life.  And  thus  our  schools  of 
commerce  are  related  to  business  expansion. 


Presentation  of  the  Commerce  Building 

W.    L.    Abbott 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  University  of  Illinois 

It  is  indeed  a  far  cry  from  the  time  when  the  Univer- 
sity of  Illinois  Avas  grudgingly  given  a  pittance  of  twenty 
thousand  dollars  a  year,  to  cover  all  its  expenditures,  to 
the  time  when  it  is  cheerfully  given  two  million  dollars  for 
the  same  purpose,  and  a  like  period  from  the  first  twenty- 
five  years  of  its  existence,  when  the  total  of  the  state's  ap- 
propriation for  buildings  amounted  to  only  two  hundred 
and  seventy-five  thousand  dollars,  to  the  present  biennium, 
when  the  building  budget  alone  amounts  to  more  than 
twice  that  sum. 

To  me  and  to  others  here  who  have  seen  and  who  have 
been  a  part  of  all  of  this,  the  question  arises,  "What  has 
brought  about  the  change  in  the  sentiment  of  the  people  of 
the  State  toward  the  University,  and  why  do  they  now 
gladly  give  a  hundred  times  as  much  as  they  formerly  be- 
grudged?" The  answer  might  be  that  it  is  because  the 
State  is  now  more  wealtliy  aud  because  advanced  education 
is  now  more  popular  than  formerly.  Although  these  are 
contributing  conditions  which  the  University  itself  helped 
to  bring  about,  the  prime  factor  in  the  University's  popu- 
larity and  prosperity  undoubtedly  is  that  while  it  has  al- 
ways maintained  high  ideals  and  has  been  a  leader  for 
progress,  it  has  in  addition  been  intensely  practical. 

The  people  of  the  State  now  look  to  these  departments 
for  authoritative  information  concerning  the  various  prob- 
lems which  arise  in  their  several  callings,  and  the  state 
government  is  relying  more  and  more  upon  the  University 
for  technical  advice  and  work;  but  beyond  all  that  it  has 
become  generally  known  that  young  men  and  women  edu- 
cated here  are  able  to  do  well  many  things  that  need  to  be 
done.     This  last  was  not  always  generally  recognized. 

133 


134      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

Who,  of  the  older  ones  here,  has  not  heard  cynical 
remarks  passed  concerning  the  proposition  to  teach  far- 
mers how  to  farm,  housekeepers  how  to  keep  house,  and 
teachers  how  to  teach?  All  of  this  opposition  and  incre- 
dulity has  been  met  and  disarmed  by  actual  demonstra- 
tion, and  now  comes  the  still  more  startling  proposition  to 
develop  a  business  man  in  college — a  School  of  Commerce 
for  instruction  in  business  theories  and  methods!  The 
old-time  business  man,  who  has  achieved  a  measure  of  suc- 
cess through  native  shrewdness,  good  luck,  and  hard  knocks 
looked  askance  at  the  proposition  to  teach  to  a  young  man 
during  the  short  period  of  a  college  education  the  funda- 
mentals of  business,  which  he  himself  did  or  did  not  learn 
during  a  long  life  of  experience.  The  farmer,  the  house- 
wife, the  mechanic,  the  clerk,  and  the  pedagogue,  would 
each  entertain  similar  views  regarding  his  own  calling,  but 
with  the  swift  progress  of  present-day  conservation  we 
have  discovered  mines  of  wealth  everywhere,  the  farmer  in 
his  soil,  the  mechanic  in  hi«  hands,  the  teacher  in  the 
minds  of  his  pupils,  and  now  b-asiness  learns  that  the  more 
the  moods  and  habits  of  the  seemingly  capricious  god  of 
commerce  are  studied  and  humored,  the  more  he  will  give 
from  his  unlimited  resources  to  those  who  ask  his  aid. 

To  me  it  has  always  seemed  that  this  School  of  Com- 
merce instead  of  being  a  branch  of  the  College  of  Liberal 
Arts  should  be  transferred  to  the  College  of  Engineering, 
and  tliere  form  the  major  part  of  a  post-graduate  course. 

I  have  known  engineers  and  engineers  in  practical  af- 
fairs, and  I  have  noticed  that  those  who  command  the  larg- 
est salaries  are  the  men  who,  after  liaving  done  work  of 
the  conventional  sort  in  designing,  constructing,  or  oper- 
ating, are  now  doing  post-graduate  work  in  the  executive 
positions  requiring  broad  knowledge  of  tlie  fundamental 
priiicijth's  wliicli  are  tauglit  in  the  course  of  tlie  School  of 
Commerce. 

Tlie  greatest  strides  which  have  been  made  in  the 
field  of  conservation  of  natural  resources  have  been  made 


PRESENTATION    OF   COMMERCE   BUILDING  135 

in  those  departments  which  involve  the  conservation  of 
human  effort.  The  man  who  studies  the  underlying  princi- 
ples through  which  these  efforts  are  put  forth  and  proposes 
new  procedures  which  will  increase  the  efficiency  of  that 
effort  is  an  engineer,  and  so  too  is  the  man  who  studies 
the  principles  of  commerce  for  the  purpose  of  learning  and 
charting  its  hidden  currents,  who  removes  obstructions 
and  straightens  the  channel  that  the  difference  in  level 
between  producer  and  consumer  may  be  reduced,  that  the 
toll  on  business  between  these  two  may  be  abolished,  that 
the  cost  of  the  consumer's  living  may  be  lowered  and  the 
returns  to  the  producer  made  liigher.  The  man  who  does 
this  is  also  an  engineer,  and  wliile  the  direct  results  of  his 
labors  are  a  great  blessing  to  humanity,  the  indirect  re- 
sults may  be  even  greater,  for  next  to  the  tie  of  blood  that 
binds  is  the  tie  of  profitable  business;  and  when  the 
streams  of  commerce  shall  flow  strong  and  unrestricted 
between  nations,  peace  on  earth  and  good  will  toward  men 
will  become  too  valuable  business  assets  to  be  disturbed. 
The  University,  in  adding  department  after  depart- 
ment, and  in  justifying  such  development  has  led  the  peo- 
ple of  the  State  from  one  advanced  position  to  another. 
It  was  because  of  such  sound  leadership  in  the  past  that 
the  appropriation  for  the  School  of  Commerce  building 
was  granted  at  a  time  when  the  practical  utility  of  the 
enterprise  was  perhaps  not  clearly  recognized  by  the  peo- 
ple. The  obligation  now  rests  upon  the  University  to 
justify,  as  it  has  in  the  past,  the  continued  liberality  of  the 
State,  and  it  is  with  perfect  confidence  in  the  University's 
ability  to  "make  good"  that  I  now  place  the  School  of 
Commerce  building  and  plant  in  tlie  hands  of  the  President 
of  the  University  and  of  tlie  faculty  of  the  College  of 
Liberal  Arts. 


University  Instruction  for  Business  Men 

Edmund  J.  James 
President  of  the  University  of  Illinois 

Those  of  us  who  had  our  college  and  university  train- 
ing in  the  middle  of  the  70's  of  the  last  century  have  seen 
a  marvelous  change  take  place  in  American  higher  educa- 
tion. We  are  apt  to  gauge  our  national  achievements  and 
our  rate  of  national  progress  by  the  striking  signs  of 
material  improvement.  The  growth  of  our  railway  system, 
the  increase  of  our  imports  and  exports,  the  ever-mounting 
agricultural  product,  the  equipment  of  our  mines  and 
factories,  the  erection  of  sky  scrapers — these  are  the  most 
common  means  by  which  we  measure  the  difference  between 
the  condition  of  things  today  and  that  of  thirty-five  or 
forty  years  ago. 

But  the  change  and,  as  we  believe,  progress  of  the 
American  people  is  no  less  remarkable  in  the  field  of 
education,  elementary,  secondary,  and  higher.  The  Ameri- 
can university  of  today  is  as  different  from  the  institution 
which  passed  under  that  name  in  the  year  1870  as  the 
modern  leviathan  which  drags  the  twentieth-century  train 
between  Chicago  and  New  York  is  different  from  the  small, 
in  some  respects  insignificant,  locomotive  which  puffed 
across  our  prairies  forty  years  ago.  This  change  has  taken 
place  even  in  our  oldest  institutions;  those  which  had  the 
longest  history  behind  tliem.  Harvard  University  has 
changed  more  in  its  essential  character  in  the  last  forty 
years  than  it  had  changed  in  the  preceding  two  hundred 
and  twenty-five.  For  tlie  Harvard  of  1870  was  still  in 
essence  the  college  of  1636,  with  the  annex  in  a  more  or 
less  loose  relation  of  two  or  tliree  professional  schools, 
which  were  themselves  in  turn  the  mere  embryos,  so  to 
speak,  of  the  corresponding  institutions  today.  What  was 
true  of  the  change  in  the  oldest  and  greatest  American 

136 


UNIVERSITY  INSTRUCTION  FOR  BUSINESS  MEN  137 

university  is,  of  course,  still  truer  of  the  newer  institutions 
like  our  own,  which  were  born  about  the  time  at  which  the 
change  began  to  pass  over  American  higher  education. 
This  change  has  taken  place  not  merely  in  the  institution 
as  a  whole  but  in  individual  departments  of  the  same. 
Harvard  University  medical  school  is  today  as  different 
an  institution  from  the  Harvard  medical  school  of  1870  as 
the  combined  mower,  reaper,  self-binder,  and  thresher  of 
the  great  northwestern  wheat  fields  is  different  from  the 
rude  and  ineffective  machine  which  had  not  yet  in  1870 
entirely  displaced  the  rude  methods  of  cradling  which  had 
prevailed  for  countless  ages  in  the  reaping  of  wheat.  Even 
the  law  school  of  Harvard  University  today,  an  institution 
which  serves  the  purposes  of  the  most  conservative  and 
slow-moving  profession  of  all — that  of  law — is  as  different 
from  the  law  school  of  Harvard  University  in  1870  as  the 
electric  light  of  today  from  the  kerosene  lamp  of  the  former 
period.  Of  course  great  lawyers  were  born,  secured  their 
training,  ran  their  careers,  before  either  the  older  or  the 
later  Harvard  law  school  was  organized  and  developed. 
And  great  lawyers  would  be  born  and  educated  and  run 
their  careers  today  if  we  had  no  law  schools  at  all.  But 
so  if  we  had  no  electric-light  society  would  still  continue. 
We  should  still  do  our  work  by  artificial  light,  great 
quantities  of  it  at  any  rate,  and  society  Avould  maintain 
a  high  degree  of  civilization  if  we  should  forget  entirely 
our  intellectual  and  manual  cunning  wliich  has  given  us 
the  electric  bulb.  But  just  as  the  latter  has  increased 
enormously  the  comfort  and  eflSciency  of  life,  so  the  former 
has  done  its  part  to  pave  the  way  at  any  rate  for  an  entirely 
new  era  in  the  practice  of  the  law  and  the  administration 
of  justice. 

But  this  change  in  American  education  has  come 
about  not  merely  in  the  old  institutions  and  the  new 
through  a  change  and,  as  we  believe,  an  improvement  in 
the  content  and  metliods  of  instruction  in  the  old  subjects, 
but  all  grades  of  education  have  been  quickened  by  an 


138      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

enormous  extension  in  the  purpose  to  be  served  and  en- 
largement in  the  number  and  kinds  of  schools  correspond- 
ing to  the  new  purposes  or  new  insights  of  society. 

Not  only  have  the  lawyer  and  the  physician  and  the 
dentist  and  the  engineer  and  the  teacher  found  new  and 
improved  institutions  in  which  to  seek  the  appropriate 
training  but  entire  new  departments,  new  spheres,  new 
territories,  so  to  speak,  have  been  added  to  the  scope  of 
university  instruction.  Most  significant,  and  most  impor- 
tant perhaps,  in  the  long  run,  of  all  these  newer  institu- 
tions, of  all  these  later  attempts  to  furnish  facilities  for 
higher  education,  has  been  the  great  movement  toward 
making  the  universities  the  centers  of  instruction  which 
the  future  business  man  would  as  inevitably  seek  in  prepa- 
ration for  his  calling  as  the  future  lawyer  or  physician  or 
engineer  or  teacher  has  already  become  accustomed  to  look 
for  in  these  great  centers  of  learning  and  teaching. 

I  think  it  safe  to  say  that  twenty-five  years  ago  prac- 
tically no  man  in  the  United  States  whose  boy  intended  to 
go  into  business  had  any  thought  of  sending  him  to  the 
university  because  of  any  special  preparation  which  he 
might  there  obtain  for  his  future  career  as  a  business  man. 
He  might,  as  many  others  did,  send  his  son  to  college  for 
the  sake  of  the  liberal  training,  for  the  sake  of  the  social 
advantages,  because  of  tlie  acquaintance  it  might  bring  to 
him  in  his  own  circle  of  society,  but  not  because  he  thought 
there  was  anything  in  the  college  or  university  curriculum 
which  had  any  specific  and  definite  relation  toward  the 
work  which  his  son  expected  to  do.  And  he  was  entirely 
justified  in  such  a  view  by  the  fact  that  no  institution  in 
this  country,  except  one,  namely,  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania, had  up  to  that  time  tried  in  earnest  the  project 
of  organizing  a  department  or  institution  or  school,  or 
whatever  you  may  call  it,  of  university  grade  whose  prime 
fnnrtion  should  be  the  special,  effective,  teclmical  training 
of  the  young  man  who  souglit  its  facilities  for  the  active 
career  of  business  and  commerce. 


UNIVERSITY  INSTRUCTION   FOR  BUSINESS  MEN  139 

Things  are  changing  today!  The  leading  universities 
of  the  country  have  finally  made  up  their  minds,  to  judge 
as  to  their  intentions  from  what  they  are  actually  doing, 
that  adequate  provision  must  be  made  within  the  scope  of 
university  organization  for  the  technical  training  of  men 
who  are  looking  forward  to  business  pursuits;  and  even  the 
oldest,  most  conservative,  and  for  a  long  time,  on  this  sub- 
ject, the  most  recalcitrant  university  of  all — Harvard — 
has  finally  become  so  enthusiastic  and  as  committed  to 
this  general  proposition  as  the  youngest  of  our  newer  insti- 
tutions. 

The  struggle  for  the  accomplishment  of  this  purpose, 
which  was  a  long  and  in  many  respects  a  bitter  one,  has 
ended  in  the  definite  victory  of  the  idea  and  its  acceptance 
by  editors,  by  business  men,  by  the  colleges  and  univer- 
sities; and  the  dedication  of  this  building  here  upon  the 
campus  of  the  University  of  Illinois  is  one  of  the  most 
striking  testimonies  to  the  victorious  outcome  of  this  great 
struggle. 

We  are  now  face  to  face  with  the  equally  difficult 
problem  of  making  good,  to  use  a  slang  term,  by  demon- 
strating that  we  are  able  to  develop  in  the  University  a 
center  of  instruction,  training,  and  research  which  will 
have  the  same  relation  toward  the  great  sphere  of  business 
life  which  the  law  school  has  to  legal  life,  the  medical 
school  to  medical  life,  etc.  In  other  words,  we  must  demon- 
strate that  we  have  in  this  field  of  instruction  the  conditions 
of  a  true  professional  school  and  that  we  are  able  to  develop 
the  content  of  our  subjects  of  instruction  in  such  a  way 
as  to  work  out  a  trul}^  professional  curriculum — a  curricu- 
lum which  we  can  recommend  to  tlie  young  fellow  look- 
ing forward  to  a  business  career  as  something  which  it 
would  be  as  well  worth  his  while  to  spend  time  and  money 
and  effort  to  complete  as  it  is  worth  the  while  of  the  future 
lawyer  or  physician  to  complete  the  corresponding  curri- 
culum of  their  respective  schools.  And  having  worked  out 
such  a  curriculum,  and  having  developed  such  an  insti- 


140      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

tution,  our  next  problem  is  to  convince  the  average  business 
man  that  we  have  done  what  we  set  out  to  do  and  that  we 
have  something  here  which  he  can  conscientiously  advise 
his  own  son  to  take  as  a  part  of  his  preliminary  prepara- 
tion for  the  career  of  a  business  man. 

I  desire,  therefore,  on  this  occasion  to  submit  a  few 
brief  considerations  upon  this  proposition.  Can  we  de- 
velop a  college  or  school  of  commerce  or  business  here  in 
the  University  of  Illinois  which  shall  be  essentially  profes- 
sional in  its  character? 

The  first  question  is :  What  is  a  profession?  The  term 
is  sometimes  used  as  a  synonym  with  learned  profession, 
and  I  have  no  objection  to  take  the  whole  phrase.  What  is  a 
learned  profession?  Briefly  defined,  a  learned  profession 
is  a  calling  which  requires  for  its  most  successful  pursuit 
a  liberal  education  as  a  preliminary  training  and  a  special 
professional  course  in  the  sciences  underlying  the  practice 
of  that  calling  with  such  applications  as  may  be  reasonably 
made  within  the  time  properly  assigned  to  school  prepa- 
ration. 

You  will  note  the  term,  for  the  successful  practice  of 
whicli,  I  mean  by  successful  here,  not  merely  for  the  suc- 
cess which  involves  making  a  pecuniary  profit  out  of  the 
business;  tliat  is  only  one  element  in  the  successful  prac- 
tice of  a  calling  which  is  to  be  called  a  learned  profession. 
An  important  element,  it  is  true,  but  not  by  any  means  the 
only  one.  That  man  is  not  successful  in  the  practice  of 
such  a  calling  as  I  have  described  who  accumulates  money, 
if  that  is  done  by  the  violation  of  law  and  ethics,  if  that  is 
done  by  the  merciless  exploitation  of  tlie  other  members  of 
society,  either  individual  or  collective.  It  is  not  successful 
if  one  of  its  incidental  results  is  the  destruction  of  other 
valuable  elements  in  the  society  of  which  it  is  a  part.  A 
man  may  make  money,  in  other  words,  and  yet  from  any 
social  or  ethical  or  even  legal  point  of  view  in  a  large  sense, 
his  business  and  he  himself  may  not  only  be  an  absolute 
failure  but  may  be  a  curse  to  the  society  which  has  made 


UNIVERSITY  INSTRUCTION   FOR  BUSINESS  MEN  141 

his  financial  success  feasible.  Now  I  maintain  that  to  the 
highest  success,  success  in  a  true  sense  of  any  business 
man  belongs  not  merely  financial  accumulation,  but  belongs 
such  a  relation  to  all  the  otlier  forces  at  work  in  his 
society  that  the  work  he  has  done  has  been  a  contribution 
to  the  success  and  advance  of  every  good  force  and  of  every 
good  element  in  the  society  at  work  within  the  range  of 
his  influence. 

Now  to  make  a  successful  business  in  this  sense  a 
man  must  have  broad  views  and  broad  sympathy ;  he  must 
see  the  end  from  the  beginning;  he  must  see  how  his  work 
fits  into  the  work  of  other  men  and  helps  them  at  the  same 
time  that  it  lifts  himself.  For  this  particular  phase  of 
his  work,  for  this  broad  view  and  large  vision,  the  element 
of  liberal  education  and  liberal  training  which  I  have  indi- 
cated as  a  part  of  the  definition  of  a  learned  profession  is 
very  necessary  and  very  vital.  Another  important  element 
in  a  calling,  which  is  to  be  termed  a  learned  profession,  is 
to  be  found  in  the  definite  training  in  the  sciences  under- 
lying the  successful  pursuit  of  that  calling,  and  this  im- 
plies that  there  are  sciences,  that  there  is  a  body  of 
knowledge  relating  to  these  subjects  which  can  be  systema- 
tized and  put  into  shape  and  organized  for  the  purpose 
of  training  the  youth  to  a  better  perception  of  the  princi- 
ples underlying  successful  work  in  this  particular  calling. 

A  calling  which  is  to  be  a  learned  profession  and  to 
be  cultivated  and  cherished  by  society  as  such  must  also 
affect  large  interests,  must  have  large  social  bearings,  com- 
prehensive social  relations. 

Tried  by  these  tests  the  career  of  a  business  man  cer- 
tainly measures  up  today  to  this  standard. 

In  the  first  place,  taking  our  tests  in  a  somewhat 
reverse  order,  the  world  of  business  in  which  this  calling 
of  a  business  man  is  to  be  exercised  is  certainly  one  of 
the  most  important  spheres  of  activity  in  our  modern 
society;  so  important  is  it  indeed  that  at  times  this 
activity  threatens  to  swallow  up  everything  else,  threatens 


142      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

to  set  the  sole  standards  by  which  men  judge  of  what  is 
feasible  or  desirable,  nay,  even  of  what  is  ethical.  An 
activity  so  all  pervading  that  it  dominates,  controls,  gives 
tone  to  the  thought  and  feeling  of  an  entire  people. 

The  American  people  today  are,  in  the  mind  of  the 
world,  essentially  not  an  artistic  people,  not  a  scientific 
people,  but  a  business  people.  We  are  caricatured  not  only 
in  our  own  comic  papers  but  in  those  of  every  other  country 
as  the  dollar  savers,  as  if  a  business  life  and  business 
standards  were  the  only  ones  whicli  had  for  us  any  specific 
significance.  I  am  sure  I  need  not  dwell  upon  this  point 
at  any  great  length.  The  sphere  of  commerce  and 
merchandising,  the  interchange  of  commodities,  is  so  im- 
portant to  the  development  of  our  national  life  that  we 
measure  our  prosperity  sometimes  by  our  exports  and  im- 
ports, by  the  arrivals  and  departures  of  wheat  and  corn  and 
beef  and  pork  in  the  Chicago  and  other  markets.  A  nation 
certainly  cannot  be  a  great  nation  nowadays  unless  its  com- 
merce and  merchandising  is  highly  developed.  It  cannot 
achieve  the  highest  success  unless  these  elements  are  de- 
veloped to  the  highest  extent  and  along  the  right  lines — 
whatever  they  may  be. 

Surely  the  great  world  of  banking  and  money  and 
credit  represents  a  sphere  of  just  as  great  importance  to 
a  liighly  developed  society  like  our  own  as  the  agriculture 
or  mining  or  manufactures  by  which  national  prosperity  is 
so  often  gauged.  If  we  could  not  develop  a  money  system 
our  civilization  would  be  little  more  than  inchoate,  em- 
bryonic, very  little  above  the  level  of  barbarism  itself; 
and  if  we  could  not  develoj)  a  credit  system  we  should  be 
confined  within  very  narrow  limits  for  the  development  of 
our  industry,  our  commerce,  our  agriculture. 

Men  talk  sometimes  about  the  ])rimary  industries — 
those  without  wliich  society  couldn't  live,  those  without 
wliich  it  couldn't  exist,  and  attempt  to  secure  for  these 
a  sfjccial  consideration  and  a  special  treatment.  In  one 
sense,  of  course,  it  is  true  we  could  not  carry  on  business 
for  a  week  unless  we  had  the  food  furnished  by  agriculture; 


UNIVERSITY  INSTRUCTION  FOR  BUSINESS  MEN  143 

and  in  this  cold  climate  in  the  winter  time  unless  we 
had  the  coal  and  wood;  nor  could  we  get  very  far  beyond 
the  level  of  barbarism  unless  we  had  the  system  of  com- 
merce and  merchandising.  But,  after  all,  if  these  were  all 
we  had,  our  civilization  would  fail  to  rise  above  a  very  low 
type  of  civilization.  To  our  civilization  in  its  present 
form  and  to  its  future  higher  developments  the  discovery 
and  organization  of  a  reasonable  money  system  and  rea- 
sonable credit  system  are  just  as  necessary  as  the  produc- 
tion of  crops  or  the  mining  of  coal,  or  the  buying  and  sale  of 
these  and  other  commodities.  Nay,  without  this  higher 
development  of  money  and  credit  we  could  not  obtain  the 
agricultural  products  or  the  yield  of  the  mines  for  the 
purpose  of  developing  this  higher  society. 

So  in  the  great  field  of  transportation,  the  movement 
of  men  and  commodities  from  one  part  of  the  country  to 
the  other  and  from  one  part  of  the  world  to  the  other, 
and  the  proper  organization  of  this  business  as  society 
develops  upon  an  ever  higher  and  more  effective  form,  is 
absolutely  necessary  to  human  progress. 

There  are  some  signs  already  abroad  in  this  country 
that  we  have  almost  reached  the  limit  of  our  powers 
of  organization  in  this  great  field  of  national  life  and 
endeavor.  There  are  signs  that  our  transportation  system 
has  outgrown  the  ability  of  men  to  handle,  at  least  of  the 
men  which  our  society  can  produce,  and  it  is  perfectly  evi- 
dent that  if  we  cannot  improve  our  transportation  system 
on  the  business  and  organizing  side  of  the  same  it  will 
make  but  little  difference  to  us  how  many  improvements 
we  are  able  to  work  out  in  the  detail  of  the  steam  engine 
or  in  the  application  of  other  kinds  of  mechanical  devices 
to  the  work  which  is  to  be  done.  Tlie  same  thing  is  true 
of  course  of  the  money  and  banking  system  which  I  have 
just  mentioned.  You  are  all  familiar  with  the  fact  that 
we  have  now  for  a  generation  in  this  country  been  quarrel- 
ing over  the  fundamental  principles  and  the  practical 
applications  in  the  world  of  money  and  banking.  Many  of 
jou  can  remember  how,  only  a  short  time  ago,  you  couldn't 


144      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

get  your  own  money  out  of  your  own  bank  because  of  the 
practical  breakdown  of  our  whole  banking  and  credit  sys- 
tem, in  the  face  of  widespread  alarm  and  panic.  It  is  per- 
fectly evident  to  the  thoughtful  observer  that  the  develop- 
ment of  our  industry  and  that  the  development  of  our  so- 
ciety are  limited  or  confined  within  narrow  bounds  unless 
we  can  progressively  work  out  a  better  scheme  of  organiza- 
tion than  that  which  we  have  thus  far  elaborated.  Surely 
those  fields  must  be  important  fields  of  human  effort,  upon 
the  successful  cultivation  of  which  depends  the  whole  prob- 
lem of  a  continuously  advancing  civilization.  I  haven't 
time,  of  course,  to  mention  other  spheres,  and  yet  perhaps 
I  might  at  least  name  one  other,  and  that  is  the  great  field 
of  insurance.  I  don't  know  that  anything  is  more  charac- 
teristic of  our  modern  society  than  the  tendency  to  protect 
the  members  of  human  society  from  the  effect  of  overwhelm- 
ing disasters  of  one  kind  and  another  over  which  they  can 
have,  in  their  individual  action  and  in  their  individual 
capacity  at  any  rate,  and  sometimes  in  their  collective  ca- 
pacity, little  or  no  influence.  We  must  all  die!  But  by 
the  proper  kind  of  an  industrial  scheme  we  may  be  able 
to  protect  our  families  from  immediate  want  through  the 
device  of  life  insurance.  We  may  not  be  able  to  protect 
our  houses  absolutely  from  destruction  by  fire,  but  we 
may  at  least  mitigate  some  of  the  material  suffering,  some 
of  the  material  consequences  of  such  disasters  by  the  device 
of  fire  insurance;  and  now  we  are  going  forward  to  the 
various  forms  of  social  insurance  against  sickness,  against 
the  helplessness  and  dependence  of  old  age,  against  the  evil 
results  of  lack  of  employment,  etc.  Now  here  is  a  great, 
largely  undeveloped,  field  of  liuman  activity  waiting  for 
men  of  brains  and  energy  to  develop  in  the  interest  of 
society.  Surely  then  we  have  here  in  this  world  of  busi- 
ness, so  to  speak,  an  important  field ;  and  tlie  calling  of  a 
business  man  has  one  of  the  characteristics  of  a  profession, 
therefore,  in  that  it  is  exercised  within  a  great  and  im- 
portant field  of  human  activity. 

Many  causes  have  been  assigned  for  tlie  destruction  of 
the  Roman  empire.    I  tliink  we  know  very  little  about  the 


UNIVERSITY  INSTRUCTION  FOR  BUSINESS  MEN  145 

real  reason  why  the  Roman  state  decayed,  any  more  than 
we  know  the  real  reason  why  man  grows  old  or  a  tree  runs 
its  course ;  but  it  is  perfectly  evident  that  one  of  the  signs 
of  degeneration,  whether  fatty  degeneration  or  not,  I  am 
not  sure,  one  of  the  signs  of  national  degeneration  in  the 
period  of  the  decay  of  tlie  Roman  empire  was  the  progres- 
sive inability  of  the  Roman  state  to  organize  its  business  on 
a  continuing  and  sound  basis.  Its  money  and  credit  sys- 
tem both  broke  down  quite  as  sadly  and  quite  as  positively 
as  its  agriculture  and  its  industry.  And  it  is  perfectly 
evident  tliat  unless  we  can  secure  the  necessary  brains,  so 
to  speak,  the  necessary  intellect  of  the  country  concentrated 
upon  the  solution  of  the  greater  problems  of  business 
organization  and  development  we  shall  reach  the  limit  of 
our  advancing  civilization  at  a  comparatively  early  stage 
of  possible  human  development. 

Another  characteristic  of  a  learned  profession  is  the 
existence  of  a  science  or  group  of  sciences — by  which  I 
mean  groups  of  organized  knowledge — the  study  and  in- 
vestigation of  which  form  the  basis  of  a  systematic  train- 
ing. Now  has  the  world  of  business  such  underlying 
sciences,  or  are  we  in  the  way  of  developing  them?  I  think 
myself  we  have  this  fundamental  basis  for  the  development 
of  a  learned  profession. 

I  should  say  that  the  most  fundamental  science, 
though  not  by  any  means  the  only  one,  is  economics,  using 
that  term  in  a  large  sense.  If  we  take  the  old  definition 
of  economics,  which  for  our  immediate  purpose  is  correct 
enough,  that  economics  is  the  science  of  the  production, 
distribution,  and  consumption  of  material  wealth,  and  con- 
fine ourselves  to  the  subject  even  as  marked  off  in  this 
rather  narrow  and  limited  definition  we  still  have  a  definite 
valuable  body  of  doctrine  wliich  may  be  used  as  a  basis  for 
intellectual  training,  and  as  a  means  of  practically  equip- 
ping the  student  witli  what  may  be  called  an  instrument  of 
investigation.  We  liave  in  connection  with  this  subject, 
using  it  in  its  larger  sense,  a  scientific  literature  which 
has  been  developed  and  elaborated  by  some  of  the  most 


146      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

acute  minds  of  the  human  race;  and  this  possession  of  a 
scientific  literature,  which  is  the  outcome  of  thought  by 
really  able  minds,  is  one  of  the  necessary  characteristics 
of  a  career  which  can  be  called  in  any  sense  a  learned  pro- 
fession. I  defy  any  man  to  wrestle  with  the  doctrine  of 
marginal  utility,  of  rent,  of  wages,  of  international  trade, 
of  the  value  of  money  and  credit,  without  feeling  that  he 
is  up  against  as  serious  and  difficult  intellectual  problems 
as  are  opened  in  the  whole  range  of  physics  or  mathematics 
or  chemistry  or  engineering;  and  the  consideration  of  these 
doctrines  is  fundamental  to  any  intelligent  opinion  in 
regard  to  the  desirable  development  of  business  in  its 
large  scope  and  outlines.  One  may  say,  of  course,  that  the 
•class  of  questions,  to  the  settlement  of  which  a  knowledge 
«of  these  subjects  is  necessary,  belongs  rather  to  the  work 
of  the  statesman  than  to  the  business  man;  but  in  my 
conception  the  business  man,  if  he  is  going  to  practice  a 
successful  profession  in  the  sense  in  which  I  have  used 
that  term,  ought  to  be  and  must  be  a  statesman  and  must 
have  the  statesman's  point  of  view.  The  names  of  Smith, 
Malthus,  Kicardo,  Mill,  Cairns,  Marshall,  Patten,  Kinley, 
Seager,  are  mere  examples  in  our  own  English  literature 
of  men,  the  following  of  whose  thought  is  a  liberal  educa- 
tion in  itself  and  the  mastery  of  whose  ideas  will  lay  the 
foundation  for  the  highest  quality  of  intellectual  effort 
in  any  department. 

Ramifying  out  from  economics  as  a  science,  branching 
and  spreading  in  countless  directions,  other  subjects  are 
springing  up,  other  sciences  are  developing  which  go  to 
make  up  the  content  of  the  course  of  study  which  the 
future  man  may  well  follow  as  a  special  technical  prepa- 
ration for  his  calling.  We  speak  now  of  the  science  of 
finance,  of  the  science  of  money  and  banking  and  credit, 
of  the  science  of  transportation,  of  the  science  of  account- 
ing, of  the  science  of  insurance;  in  each  of  these  cases 
there  is  already  a  collected  body  of  doctrine  which  may  be 
made  the  l)asis  of  an  intellectual  and  practical  training 
of  use  to  anyone  who  is  willing  to  give  the  time  and  energy 


UNIVERSITY  INSTRUCTION  FOR  BUSINESS  MEN  147 

to  its  acquisition ;  and  the  study  of  all  these  subjects,  aside 
from  giving  definite  information  which  would  be  of  value 
to  the  business  man,  would  open  his  eyes,  enlarge  his  vision, 
train  his  judgment,  quicken  his  initiative  enterprise.  In 
otlier  words,  make  him  a  liberally  and  technically  trained 
man  for  the  work  which  lie  is  about  to  pursue. 

My  first  proposition  then  is,  that  the  establishment  of 
such  courses  of  training  as  these  and  the  investigation  of 
the  subjects  utilized  for  this  instruction  is  clearly  desir- 
able in  the  interest  of  more  efficient  training  of  the  business 
men  themselves  in  order  to  enable  them  to  be  more  surely 
successful,  and  successful  in  the  largest  sense,  in  the  life 
which  they  propose  to  enter  upon.  There  is  another  im- 
portant side  of  this  question  which  I  wish  to  mention,  at 
any  rate,  before  closing.  If  such  a  system  of  education 
is  desirable  in  the  interest  of  business  and  the  business  man 
on  the  one  hand,  it  is  equally  desirable  on  the  other  that 
business  men  receive  such  an  education  in  the  interest  of 
society  in  general. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in  the  development  of 
modern  social  life  than  the  ever  increasing  importance  of 
the  business  classes  of  the  community.  Even  in  Europe 
where  the  nobility,  the  army,  the  civil  service,  the  learned 
professions,  still  occupy  the  leading  social  and  political 
positions,  the  social  status  of  the  business  classes  is  con- 
tinually changing  for  the  better;  the  business  classes 
themselves  are  acquiring  a  continually  increasing  influence 
in  politics  and  society.  In  our  own  country  where  busi- 
ness was  from  the  beginning  the  occupation  of  a  leading 
portion  of  the  community,  the  business  classes  were  never 
beyond  the  pale  of  society  as  in  Europe ;  but  even  here,  the 
relative  position  of  business  men  in  politics  and  society  is 
rapidly  changing  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  classes  for- 
merly looked  upon  as  social  and  political  leaders.  The 
heroes  to  whom  our  children  look  up,  whose  deeds  are 
related  with  admiration,  are  today  the  great  captains 
of  trade  and  industry,  as  the  great  orators,  preachers,  and 
lawyers  were  of  a  former  period.     Whether  for  weal  or 


148      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

woe,  the  dominating  tone  of  American  society,  tlie  ideas  of 
American  youth,  are  set  to  an  ever-increasing  extent  by  the 
great  railroad  manager,  the  insurance  director,  the  banker, 
the  merchant,  the  manufacturer. 

What  should  be  the  characteristics  of  a  model  business 
man?  I  need  not  stop  to  speak  of  those  absolutely  funda- 
mental qualities  which  are  so  often  recommended  to  us  in 
prose  and  verse — such  as  sobriety,  industry,  perseverance, 
honesty,  etc.,  qualities  which  are  generally  acknowledged 
to  be  necessary  to  all  classes  of  men. 

I  would,  however,  especially  emphasize  initiative 
enterprise,  broad  views  of  industrial  problems  and  possi- 
bilities; a  sense  of  the  nobility  of  business  and  the  possi- 
bility of  usefulness  to  society  through  ordinary  business 
channels;  an  esprit  du  corps  which  feels  to  the  quick  any 
base  or  stupid  action  of  a  fellow  business  man  as  a  dis- 
grace to  the  calling — that  fine  sense  of  honor  which  should 
characterize  every  profession.  The  business  classes  of  a 
community  should  follow  the  injunction  of  the  Apostle, 
and  magnify  their  calling  by  adorning  it  with  all  those 
qualities  which  call  forth  the  admiration  of  the  best  men. 

No  one  can  study  the  history  of  civilization  from  an 
economic  standpoint  without  becoming  convinced  that 
scant  justice  has  been  done  in  our  literature  and  history 
to  the  fundamental  importance  of  trade  and  industry  to 
the  progress  of  civilization  itself.  We  trace  the  history 
of  politics  and  political  divisions,  of  wars  and  kings  and 
generals,  of  law  and  theology  and  medicine,  of  science 
and  literature  and  art,  and  think  we  have  a  fairly  complete 
view  of  human  liistory.  Tlie  progress  of  mankind,  however, 
is  nowliere  more  clearly  reflected  than  in  the  invention  and 
perfection  of  money;  or  in  the  establislmient  and  develop- 
ment of  banks;  or  in  the  origin  and  growth  of  insurance; 
or  llic  development  of  clearing-houses,  and  the  other 
thousand  and  one  devices  of  our  credit  and  monetary  sys- 
tem. Let  us  recognize  clearly  that  an  imi)rovement  in 
business — a  new  device  or  a  new  application  of  an  old  one — 
is  of  ;is  iinuli  interest  to  humanity  as  a  discovery  in  medi- 


UNIVERSITY  INSTRUCTION   FOR  BUSINESS  MEN  149 

cine,  or  an  improvement  in  law,  a  new  formulation  of  a 
theological  creed  or  the  invention  of  a  new  motive  power. 

The  promissory  note  in  all  its  various  ramifications  is 
perhaps  as  important  to  human  welfare  as  the  microscope 
itself,  while  the  invention  of  money  is  even  more  important 
than  the  printing-press  or  the  steam  engine.  There  is  an 
opportunity  in  the  dull  round  of  business  not  merely  to 
earn  a  living,  not  merely  to  provide  for  one's  family,  not 
merely  to  heap  up  wealth  which  may  be  used  to  found  a 
hospital  or  a  college,  but  to  confer  blessings  of  incalculable 
benefit  upon  mankind  by  improving  the  processes  of  busi- 
ness itself.  No  thoughtful  man  can  look  around  him  in  any 
branch  of  business  without  seeing  numerous  points  at 
which  it  may  be  improved,  and  the  history  of  other 
branches  of  human  life  show  how  much  individual  men 
may  accomplish  by  giving  their  thoughtful  attention  to 
such  things.  Such  work  is  as  truly  scientific  in  character 
and  philanthropic  in  its  results  as  the  search  for  the 
cholera  bacillus  and  its  remedy. 

Sucli  a  mode  of  viewing  business  would  not  only  tend 
to  improve  the  character  of  business  methods,  but  it  would 
raise  the  whole  level  of  business  thought  and  feeling,  in- 
crease the  interest  of  business  men  in  their  work  and 
react  beneficially  on  society  in  general  in  countless  ways. 
It  would  tend  to  beget  an  esprit  du  cot'ps,  wliich  would  do 
away  with  countless  abuses  of  our  business  life  growing 
out  of  the  bitter  competition  of  our  modern  economic 
system. 

I  take  it  there  will  be  little  difference  of  opinion  upon 
these  points.  My  experience  as  a  teacher  leads  me  to  be- 
lieve that  much  may  be  done  by  a  systematic  school  training 
to  develop  the  above  mentioned  qualities  in  the  future 
business  man. 

The  aim  of  commercial  education,  such  as  I  am  plead- 
ing for,  is  to  awaken  a  profound  interest  in  business  as 
such;  to  train  youth  to  an  appreciation  of  the  functions  of 
business  and  business  practice  in  our  modern  life ;  to  inform 
him  as  to  the  history  of  industry  and  trade;  to  awaken 


150      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

his  interest  in  its  future;  to  train  him  to  keep  his  eyes 
open  as  to  business  possibilities;  to  inspire  him  with  a 
healthy  respect  for  business  in  all  its  various  branches; 
to  arouse  a  determination  to  become  not  only  a  success- 
ful business  man  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term,  but 
a  useful  one  as  well;  to  beget  a  public  spirit;  to  excite  an 
interest  in  the  higher  welfare  of  society ;  in  a  word,  to  be- 
come a  public-spirited,  intelligent,  well-educated,  and  suc- 
cessful man  of  affairs. 


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Presentation  of  the  Portrait  of  the  Late  Mr.  Edward 
Jarvis  Parker  to  the  School  op  Commerce 

B.  F.  Harris 
Representing  the   Illinois   Bankers'  Association 

With  all  the  ceaseless  moil  and  toil  of  the  countless 
captains  of  the  numberless  industries  and  enterprises  that 
constitute  what  we  call  commerce,  there  is  all  too  little 
sentiment  or  all  too  little  of  the  things  that  make  for 
inspiration. 

With  all  our  various  vocations  we  are  overlooking 
or  omitting  the  avocations  which  would  add  so  much  to 
our  own  life  and  the  lives  of  those  about  us.  It  is  particu- 
larly necessary  in  these  days,  that  the  modern  school  of 
commerce  should  make  many-sided  men,  tliat  sentiment 
should  have  its  proper  bearing  and  citizenship  loom 
larger. 

Perhaps  the  best  sign  of  the  times  is  the  change  in 
public  attitude  which  brings  moral  purpose  to  public  as 
well  as  private  affairs,  it  requires  more  of  consistency  and 
less  of  expediency,  and,  in  a  word,  holds  some  higlier 
hope  than  mere  dollars.  In  short,  the  day  and  dictum  of 
dollar  diplomacy  are  in  the  discard,  and  days  of  real 
progress  are  come,  "for  man  liveth  not  to  himself  alone 
nor  by  bread  alone." 

One  of  the  best  object  lessons  and  inspirations  in  this 
direction  will  lie  in  the  gathering  together  here  in  a  Hall 
of  Fame,  the  portraits  not  simply  of  men  who  attained 
eminence  and  renown  in  their  devotion  to  the  various 
departments  of  commerce,  but  withal  were  helpful,  force- 
ful citizens,  loading  or  working  with  every  movement  con- 
cerned with  the  making  of  a  bigger,  better,  broader,  and 
fuller  civilization. 

This  portrait,  the  first  we  are  to  place,  is  most  happily 
chosen.  Edward  Jarvis  Parker,  banker,  typified  all  that 
the  term  good  citizenship  comproliends.  A  little  more 
than  a  year  ago,  after  practical!}'   fift}'  years   spent  in 

151 


152      COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

building  up  and  directing  the  largest  bank  in  the  state 
outside  of  Chicago,  Mr.  Parker  went  to  a  certain  reward, 
mourned  as  the  first  man  of  Quincy.  He  had  shown  that 
the  rare  qualifications  of  the  exceptionally  able  banker 
and  business  man  could  be  combined  with  the  unusually 
versatile  and  public-spirited  attributes  of  citizenship  in 
a  most  successful  and  helpful,  active  business  life,  reach- 
ing in  numberless  directions  that  touch  the  human  side 
of  things. 

His  activities  in  the  public  welfare,  in  legislation,  in 
art,  in  benevolences  were  nation-wide,  but  his  greatest 
pride  was  in  the  Park  Boulevard  System  which  he  con- 
ceived and  carried  out  in  Quincy. 

The  banker  should  be  the  bravest  man  in  town,  and 
the  least  afraid  of  criticism.  That  Mr.  Parker  met  these 
requirements,  my  personal  acquaintance  with  him  made 
certain.  He  had  in  a  large  degree,  that  splendid  spirit 
and  conception  of  public  duty  that  we  call  virtue,  that 
makes  good  citizenship,  and  so  makes  good  government 
and  the  things  we  have  referred  to  possible  and  enduring. 

It  is  this  spirit  of  good  citizenship,  that  must  pene- 
trate the  nation,  that  it  is  the  duty  of  our  University  to 
spread  abroad,  that  the  School  of  Commerce  must  breathe 
into  its  graduates,  and  that  the  story  and  portrait  of 
Edward  Jarvis  Parker  and  others  who  are  to  follow  will 
exemplify  and  inspire. 


JOINT   BANQUET,    DEDICATION    OF 

THE    COMMERCE    BUILDING 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 

The  Commercial  Club  of  Urbana  and  The  Chamber  of  Commerce 
OF    Champaign 

Armory,  April  17,  1913 

Program 

Invocation Rev.  S.  E.  Fishee 

J.  M.  Kaufman — President  of  the  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce 
C.  D.  RouRKE — President  of  the  Commercial  Club 


Brief  Talks 

Edmund  J.  James,  President  of  the  University  of  Illinois 
David  Kinley       .        .        Dean  of  the  Graduate  School 

H.  I.  Green Urbana 

Dr.  W.  F.  Burres Urbana 

B.   F.   Harris Champaign 

J.  R.  Trevett Champaign 


Honored  Guests 

W.  L.  Abbott  .  President,  Board  of  Trustees,  U.  of  I. 
Thomas  McClelland  .  .  President,  Knox  College 
S.  T.  Henry  .  Western  Manager,  Engineering  Record 
L.  C.  Marshall,  Dean^  College  of  Commerce,  University  of 

Chicago 
H.  EltinG;,  President,  Chicago  Association  of  Commerce 


music^  courtesy  of  the 

University  of  Illinois  Band 

A.  A.  Harding,  Director 


153 


INDEX 

Abbott,  W.  L.,  133-135,  153- 

Accountancy,  3,  4,  95,  98,  146. 

Advertising,  4,  95,  98. 

Agriculture,  24-32,  119,  120. 

Agricultural  Building,  24. 

Agricultural  economics,  29,  30,  31. 

American  Bankers'  Association,  51,  56,  57,  58,  59,  60. 

Amos  Tuck  School,  105. 

Atkinson,  Edward,  57. 

Banking,  27,  28,  126,  142,  143,  146. 

Banquet  program,  153. 

Boards  of  trade,  13,  14. 

Bolles,  Albert  S.,  53. 

Budget,  its  nature,  purpose  and  effect,  35-50. 

Burress,  Dr.  W.  F.,  153. 

Business  Administration  in  its  Relation  to  Public  and  Private  Welfare,  6, 

11-32,  35-66. 
Business  ethics,  71,  iii,  122,  124,  130,  140. 
Business  organization  and  practice,  4. 
Business  Problems  of  Agriculture,  24-32. 
Business  training,  factors  in,  94-98. 
Butler,  George  A.,  59. 

Chamber  of  Commerce  of  Champaign,  7,  153. 

Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the  United  States,  11. 

Chambers  of  Commerce,  13,  14. 

Chicago,  92,  107,  142. 

Chicago  Association  of  Commerce,  lOi,  105. 

Civil  Service  Commission,  48. 

Cleveland,  Frederick  A.,  16,  35-50. 

Clow,  W.  E.,  92. 

College  graduate,  characteristics  of,  108-118. 

College  Graduate  a  Business  Tyro — a  Matter  of  Adjustment,  101-118. 

College  of  Engineering,  22,  133. 

Commencing  Right,  69-83. 

Commerce,  professorship  of,  3. 

Commerce  Building,  i,  3-6,  25,  133,  135,  139. 

Commercial  Club  of  Urbana,  7,  153. 

Commercial  clubs,  13,  14. 

154 


INDEX  155 

Commercial  education, 

demand  for,  15,  93,  94,  95,  97>  98; 

development  of,  51-61,  65,  90,  105,  138; 

in  Germany,  86,  125 ; 

in  the  University  of  Illinois,  1-4,  105; 

necessary,  15,  22,  23,  27,  70,  87,  102; 

purpose,  16,  17,  66,  85,  86,  88,  89,  106,  107,  125,  127,  128,  130,  131, 

134,  147.  149; 
relation  of,  to  Agriculture,  26,  28,  29,  30; 
result  of,  86,  109,  112,  113,  114,  115,  116,  117,  118; 

support  of,  2,  3,  II,  125,  135- 
Commercial  Education  and  Business  Success,  6,  69-98. 
Commercial  lavif,  4. 

Commission  on  Economy  and  Efficiency,  35. 

Committee  on  Education,  Illinois  Manufacturers'  Association,  92. 
Conference  on  commercial  education  and  business  progress,  i,  6.  13. 
Congress,  37,  38,  39,  41,  42,  43,  44- 
Constitution  of  Great  Britain,  38,  39,  40. 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  ZT,  38,  41,  44. 
Convention  of  the  American  Bankers'  Association,  56,  57,  58,  60. 
Convocation,  8. 

Dartmouth  College,  105. 

Dedication  of  the  Commerce  Building,  6,  101-152. 

Department  of  Commercial  Science  and  Art,  i. 

Economics,  registrations  in  department  of,  3. 
Education  in  the  United  States,  development  of,  61,  62. 
Education  of  Business  Men,  57. 
Efficiency  in  business,  11-16,  18,  31, 
Elting,  Howard,  101-118,  153. 
Ewing.  Charles  A.,  24-32. 
Executive  responsibility,  45,  46-50. 
Export  trade,  122,  123. 

Farm  management,  28,  29. 

Federal  government  irresponsible,  36. 

Fisher,  Rev.  S.  E.,  153. 

Green,  H.  I.,  153. 

Harding,  A.  A.,  153. 

Harris,  B.  F.,  151,  152,  153. 

Harvard  University,  16,  60,  105.  106,  136,  137,  139. 

Hegeler.  Julius,  92. 

Henry,  S.  T.,  18-23.  153. 


156        COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION  AND  BUSINESS  PROGRESS 

Hill,  James  J.,  26. 
Hudson  tunnels,  19. 

Illinois  Manufacturers'  Association,  92. 

Industry  and  Transportation,  professorship  of,  3. 

Insurance,  144,  146. 

James,  Edmund  J.,  3,  5i,  53,  56,  57,  58,  60,  loi,  136-150,  I53- 

Kaufman  J.  M.,  153. 

Kinley,  David,  2,  60,  loi,  107,  1 19-132,  146,  153. 

Letter  from:  Accountant,  112;  Bank  president,  117;  Insurance  firm,  116; 
Manufacturer,  115,  116;  Railroad  president,  108;  Railroad  super- 
intendent, 108;  Retailer,  113;  Wholesaler,  114. 

McClelland,  Rev.  Thomas,  8,  153. 
McKinley,  William  B.,  7. 
Marshall,  Leon  C,  84-91,  146,  153. 
Medical  School,  Harvard  University,  137. 
Medical  School,  University  of  Pennsylvania,  62. 
Morgan,  J.  Pierpont,  71,  80,  103. 

Normal  schools  established,  62. 
Northwestern  University,  16,  105. 

Origin  and  Progress  of  Business  Education  in  the  United  States,  51-66. 

Parker,  Edward  Jarvis,  151,  152. 

President  of  the  United  States,  36,  37,  38,  39,  41,  42,  43,  44,  49. 
Presentation  of  the  Commerce  Building,  133-135. 
Presentation  of  the  portrait  of  Edward  J.  Parker,  151,  152. 
Program  of  Conference  on   Commercial  Education  and   Business   Prog- 
ress, 7. 
Pujo  Commission,  80,  103. 
Public  Concern  in  Improved  Business  Administration,  11-17. 

Questionnaire    of    the    Illinois    Manufacturers'    Association    on    College 
Courses  in  Business  Administration,  92-98. 

Railway  administration,  3. 

Railway  mileage  of  Illinois,  27. 

Relation  of  a  School  of  Commerce  to  the  Practical  Problems  of  Business, 

84-91. 
Resolution  of  the  American  Bankers'  Association,  57,  59. 
Responsibility  to  the  electorate,  35,  36,  44. 


INDEX  157 

Revell,  Alexander  H.,  69-83. 

Rhawn,  William  H.,  51,  55,  56,  57,  59. 

Rourke,  C.  D.,  153. 

Salesmanship,  4,  22,  23  95,  96,  98. 

School  of  Commerce,  University  of  Illinois,  2. 

Schools  of  Commerce  and  Improvement  of  Business,  1 19-132. 

Secretaryships,  4,  15,  16. 

Service  sales  work,  18-23. 

Snyder,  Capt.  Edward,  i. 

Some  Business  Tendencies  of  the  Day,  18-23. 

Stewart,  Charles  L.,  92,  n.  i. 

Success  in  business,  27,  74,  75,  76,  79,  103,  127,  140,  141. 

Tariff,  31,  43. 

Trades  organizations  13,  14. 
Transportation,  143,  146. 
Trevett,  J.  R.,  153. 

University  Instruction  for  Business  Men,  136-150. 
University  of  Cambridge,  66. 
University  of  Chicago,  60,  84,  105. 
University  of  Illinois,  loi,  133; 

College  of  Engineering,  22; 

Commerce  Building,  i,  3,  4  5,  6; 

commercial  courses  in,  i,  2,  3,  60,  61,  97,  105,  140. 
University  of  Michigan,  60,  105. 

University  of  Pennsylvania,  3,  51,  52,  57,  60,  105,  138. 
University  of  Wisconsin,  60,  105. 

Vanderlip,  Frank  A.,  119,  129. 
Vocational  training,  62-66. 

Wharton,  Joseph,  51,  52,  56. 

Wharton  School  of  Economics  and  Finance,  3,  51,  S3,  54,  55,  56,  57,  58,  59. 

What  a  Budget  May  Mean  to  the  Administration,  35-50. 

Wheeler,  Harry  A.,  11-17. 

Wilder,  John  E.,  92. 


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